Lawsuit: School District 300 ‘failed’ to protect student from ex-employee now registered sex offender

Algonquin-based Community School District 300 failed to protect students when an employee “improperly accessed” their personal files, groomed, harassed and solicited them for sexually explicit images – then threatened and bullied them for more, according to a lawsuit filed against the district.

“He didn’t have any academic reason to look at student records,” attorney Daniel Fritz said of Donald Peters.

A McHenry County judge ruled Tuesday that the lawsuit has enough merit to proceed, though some limits were placed on plaintiffs’ arguments.

Peters, 36, of Cary, worked at Westfield Community School in Algonquin as an attendance secretary from 2019 until his arrest in July 2023. In June, Peters was sentenced to seven years in prison after pleading guilty to possessing images of child sex abuse involving involving two District 300 students. Peters is required to register as a sex offender for life.

Fritz and attorney Stephanie White represent one of those students and his mother – identified in records as John and Jane Doe – in a lawsuit against Peters and the school district.

Peters initially was charged with more serious Class X felonies of possessing images of child sex abuse, which could brought decades in prison if he’d gone to trial and been convicted. But those charges were dismissed.

Authorities have said Peters accessed the personal information of more than 30 students in District 300 and cyberstalked, groomed, solicited and coerced them to send sexual images of themselves.

Peters, posing as a young girl named Sarah, added students to his Snapchat account named “MellowMoney221,” according to the civil lawsuit. It said Peters accessed John Doe’s personal email accounts, photos, contact information, school activities and curriculum.

As ”Sarah,” Peters sent naked photos of a young girl to students including John Doe, then solicited them to send him naked images, according to the suit, adding that when they didn’t comply, he threatened physical and sexual harm and said he would get them in trouble at school. Peters did some of this during work hours, the lawsuit contends.

Peters began harassing John Doe in Spring 2019 when the boy was in middle school and continued until Peters’ arrest in July 2023, according to the lawsuit.

Peters “repeatedly” contacted, harassed and solicited sexually explicit images of John Doe, gaining his confidence by misleading him ”into believing he was interacting with another female student at his school who was attracted to or romantically interested” in him, the lawsuit states.

Posing as a girl, Peters made “flattering comments” to the boy “about his appearance, his attire, his participation on his school’s wrestling team, and other school specific activities,” according to the lawsuit.

“At no time ... did District 300 intervene, prevent, stop or monitor Peters’ access” to the student records, the lawsuit states.

The lawsuit alleges the district was “willful and wanton” in failing to protect the boy. His mother learned her son was being solicited by someone to send naked pictures on March 14, 2023, when he received a message during school hours; because the wording was so specific to her son and his activities, his mother believed it was coming from an employee or coach in the district, the suit states.

She reported this and her suspicions in person to district officials the next day and, according to the lawsuit, the district failed to investigate or report her suspicions to police or the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services, as they are required to do by law, the attorneys said.

Fritz contends the district “really did nothing to investigate” the mother’s concerns.

“There are steps the district could have taken to look into the mom’s allegations. They could have looked into who is accessing the information, and they didn’t,” Fritz said.

Jane Doe also went to Algonquin police, who opened an investigation involving the U.S. Secret Service, according to a detective’s summary of the case obtained through a Freedom of Information request. Police traced images and IP addresses to Peters’ cellphone, home address and his job at the district, according to the summary.

On May 8, 2023, police notified the district’s director of school safety about their findings, the summary said. Authorities interviewed Peters the next day and seized his cellphone; Peters denied any involvement, according to the summary.

Still, the district allowed him to keep working, with access to students’ information, and did not do any investigation on their own, according to the lawsuit, which contends Peters continued to harass John Doe until his arrest on July 18, 2023, for several months after Jane Doe reported her concerns to the district, according to the lawsuit.

The Secret Service provided a digital extraction from Peters’ phone that showed direct-message notifications from other social media users referenced “baiting” Snapchat and Instagram users, according to the police summary.

Police also discovered Peters’ illicit activities may have reached outside the school district.

The summary said a search warrant served on Twitter, now X, “provided additional correspondence between users. The messages appeared to be inquiries by Donald Peters to other Twitter users, attempting to solicit their services to obtain nude images from other social media users,” according to the summary. Messages indicated Peters used a payment app to pay other users nude images."

Algonquin police searched Peters’ home on July 18, 2023. They seized digital devices on which secure erasure programs were installed that are used to attempt to hide online activity, according to the summary.

When asked for comment on the lawsuit, a district representative said it does not comment on pending litigation.

In court motions seeking to dismiss the lawsuit, district officials claim they didn’t know about Peters’ illicit actions until after he was arrested. They claim the lawsuit has not supplied “sufficient facts” to “show that the District either manifested deliberate intent to cause harm to John Doe or it had a conscious disregard for John Doe’s safety.”

The boy’s lawsuit asserts the district knew or should have known about Peters’ behavior.

But the district counters in court documents that “the mere fact that a District employee, such as Peters, could conceivably commit misconduct does not put District 300 on either actual or constructive notice that such misconduct is taking place so as to expose District 300 to willful and wanton liability as plaintiffs appear to believe.”

Tuesday, the judge agreed with the district’s attorney, Katherine Takiguchi, that there are limits to what the district could have reasonably done to monitor employees on the mere premise that they could potentially engage in misconduct. Takiguchi said it would be an “impossible standard” to expect that the district could monitor all electronic devices of all employees.

The judge also said the courts will only take into account the district’s alleged inaction after Jane Doe first went to officials with her concerns in March 2023.

John Doe, who has since graduated high school, suffers mental, emotional and physical pain caused by the bullying, harassment and fear Peters inflicted, White said.

Before Peters victimized John Doe, he “was a fairly high-level athlete and that has changed,” White said.

Although they wish Peters was off the streets forever, John Doe and his family are thankful to prosecutors that Peters got prison time and will be a registered sex offender for life. They hope shedding light on the extent of what allegedly happened will prevent other students from suffering, White said.

In addition to this case, White is representing five clients who are former District 300 students in the unrelated case of Carlos A. Bedoya, 69. In 2019, the former District 300 teacher’s aide, substitute teacher and youth soccer coach for the Boys and Girls Club of Dundee Township was sentenced to prison for 172 years for sexually abusing 12 elementary students from 2015 to 2017, according to news articles and a news release from the Kane County State’s Attorney’s Office.

Attorneys hope to hear from other people who may have been targeted by Peters. Illinois law allows an extended statute of limitations in filing civil lawsuits by someone who has been sexually abused. White said they have until they are 38 years old, and in some cases involving repressed memory, that time is extended.