New legal trouble for Parlier Unified and teacher accused of sex with student

FRESNO, Calif. -- Parlier Unified is on the hot seat in court, accused of exposing students to a teacher who was eventually arrested on charges of sexually assaulting a teenage girl.

"Did they not do something that they should have done in terms of interviewing this teacher?" asked ABC30 legal analyst Tony Capozzi. "Did they miss something in the interview?"

Police arrested 25-year-old Anthony Lepore in January. Lepore is not yet facing criminal charges for the incident with one of his 16-year-old students. But his defense attorney tells Action News he thinks it's imminent.

As a 25-year-old first-year teacher and coach, he was caught with the girl at 2 a.m. when her parents were waiting as he dropped her off.

According to court documents Action News uncovered, she told police he sexually assaulted her. And in a lawsuit filed this week, her family says Parlier Unified should've known he was going to do it.

Capozzi says it'll be a challenge to prove the district was negligent. "You can never predict the future of a person you're hiring unless there's something in that personality, something in his characteristics you missed that should've come out," he said. "Unless that's there, it's going to be difficult to prove negligence."

A few mistakes in hiring or supervision would change everything, though.

"Missing a prior conviction for molestation, something going on, on campus that they should've seen, if there are complaints by other students and they didn't follow up," Capozzi said as examples.

Parlier Unified administrators did not respond to my requests for comment on what kind of criminal background check they perform. The district, the high school, and the superintendent are all targets of the lawsuit, along with Lepore.

"What they're trying to do is find a deep pocket, someone who has the money to cover for any injuries this young girl might have," Capozzi said.

And she might not be the only one. Action News found search warrants detailing Facebook messages between Lepore and a different 15-year-old girl.

Investigators say Lepore intended to commit illegal sex acts, and even sent the girl a link to an explicit photo. But up to now, our own criminal background check revealed no cases against him.