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CV NEWS FEED // The parents of four female high school students are suing an Indiana Catholic school, the Archdiocese of Indianapolis, the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend, and school employees they claim failed to notify police about pornography created by students that exploited their daughters.
Local NBC affiliate WTHR reported that three male students at Bishop Luers High School in Fort Wayne searched online for explicit images and videos of girls and women who resembled several of their female classmates. They then created pornographic montages that superimposed their female classmates’ names over the explicit content. According to the Jan. 21 complaint, the male students used the names of 38 former and current female students, most of whom were minors at the time.
They then began selling and distributing the videos to other students at Bishop Luers and surrounding high schools. According to the complaint, the videos were also potentially circulating on the internet, “such that any on-line search of the [victims’ names] could yield a search result that included these shocking videos and images.”
The complaint stated that the pornography could have begun circulating as early as 2022. One of the girls victimized by the content discovered one of the videos Sept. 19, 2023, and brought it to the school’s attention.
However, the complaint alleges that James Huth, who was then the principal at Bishop Luers; Kevin Mann, who is dean of students and athletic director at the school; and David Maugel, who was assistant superintendent and then acting superintendent of schools within the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend, had known about the videos as early as February 2023. They allegedly failed to report the pornography to the authorities, the school board, and the victims’ parents, violating an Indiana code that mandates reporting child abuse.
The complaint also alleges that the bishop of the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend, as well as the archbishop of the Archdiocese of Indianapolis, had viewed or been informed of the pornography, but did not report it or order an investigation. Bishop Kevin C. Rhoades has led the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend since 2010, while Archbishop Charles C. Thompson has led the Archdiocese of Indianapolis since 2017.
In a Jan. 25 statement to CatholicVote, a spokesperson for the Archdiocese said that the lawsuit’s claim that the Archdiocese “created, oversaw, managed, controlled and or directed all employees assigned to work in the diocese and school … including the Fort Wayne-South Bend Diocese” is “factually incorrect.” The Diocese and the Archdiocese are separate legal entities.
“The Archdiocese has no control or management of Bishop Luers High School or the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend and was not aware of the events that are alleged in the complaint until contacted by the media,” the spokesperson told CatholicVote via email. The spokesperson also noted that the Archdiocese has not been served with the lawsuit.
The Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend did not comment on the lawsuit except to refer CatholicVote to a Jan. 22 letter issued by Bishop Luers’ current principal, Scott Kreiger. The diocesan spokesperson said that the letter was sent to the Bishop Luers community “with support from the Diocese.”
Kreiger stated in the letter: “Out of respect for the privacy of our students, we are not at liberty to engage in a public response to the allegations made in the lawsuit, other than to say that many of the allegations contained in the Complaint are not accurate representations of the truth or of Bishop Luers High School to this situation.”
Kreiger added that the high school “did notify appropriate authorities in a timely manner” and expelled two students “responsible for this inappropriate conduct.”
However, the lawsuit alleges that the school was hesitant to contact the police once the girls and their parents discovered the manipulated pornography.
According to The Indiana Lawyer, “When the victims’ parents confronted Mann about the images, he allegedly told them that in his opinion, no crime had been committed and therefore the high school had no duty to contact authorities.”
The complaint states that Mann repeatedly declined to call the police and did not do so until the victims’ parents threatened to do it themselves. The parents also repeatedly told the school and diocesan officials that they were forbidden from interviewing their daughters about the pornography without them present; however, the school ignored the instructions and repeatedly pulled the four girls out of classes to “interrogate” and “gaslight them about the situation” without their parents, according to the complaint.
The students also told Mann that they were “terrified” an internet search of their names during their college application processes would reveal the pornography and hurt their chances of future employment. The complaint states that Mann told them that they “‘shouldn’t care what others think of them,’ or words to that effect.”
The complaint names Huth, Mann, and Maugel as defendants, in addition to the school itself, the Archdiocese of Indianapolis, and the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend. According to the complaint, the defendants “engaged in a plan and scheme to ignore, conceal and/or avoid discovery of these videos, and defendants’ wrongful conduct facilitated the on-going exploitation and abuse of minor children at Bishop Luers.”
The complaint also states that the victims have suffered various symptoms of depression, while their parents are now struggling with their “previously rock-solid Catholic faith, as a direct result of the deliberate indifference and mismanagement of this terrible situation by the DEFENDANTS.”
“This case demonstrates what happens when those entrusted with our children’s care don’t uphold their legal and moral responsibility to protect them,” stated Attorney Greg Laker, one of the three attorneys representing the victims.
“Instead, Bishop Luers High School, the Diocese and Archdiocese prioritized their own public image and reputation, utterly failing the student-victims,” he added, according to WTHR.
The Indiana Lawyer reported, “Plaintiffs are suing defendants for fraudulent concealment, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and negligence/gross negligence, in addition to other charges specific to the defendants that allegedly had knowledge of the images well before victims did.”
