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School accused of using girl as rape bait; girl gets attacked

Justice, Education departments join father suing school board after daughter is used as rape bait and is then allegedly sodomized by boy at school.

By Danielle Haynes

HUNTSVILLE, Ala., Sept. 21 (UPI) -- Federal officials filed a brief in support of a man and his daughter, after the girl was allegedly raped as part of a plan by a teacher to catch a boy sexually harassing girls at an Alabama middle school.

The girl, then 14, agreed to take part in a plan formulated by teacher's aide June Simpson to catch the 16-year-old boy who had been accused of harassing girls into having sex with him, and having sex with one girl in one of the Sparkman Middle School bathrooms.

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Both the alleged victim and the boy were enrolled in special needs programs at the school.

According to the plan, the girl was supposed to meet with the boy in one of the school bathrooms, where teachers would be positioned to stop him before he attacked her. The plan was part of an effort to catch the boy in the act.

But the boy convinced the girl to meet him in a different bathroom, where no teachers were positioned to intervene. The boy allegedly sodomized the girl.

The girl's father filed a lawsuit against the Madison County School Board, most of which was dismissed by the District Court and is currently on appeal.

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On Wednesday, the Justice Department the U.S. Department of Education filed an amicus brief, or a "friend of the court" brief, supporting the father's case.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit in Atlanta will decide whether to hear the case.

The alleged victim will not or can not talk about the incident. She was taken to the National Children's' Advocacy Center in Huntsville, Ala., where a rape kit was performed on her.

After the incident, the boy was sent to an alternative school for 20 days before he was allowed to return to Sparkman Middle School. He had 15 violent or sex-related offenses on his school record from before the incident.

The girl never returned to the school.

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