FAIRFAX, Va. (AP)
— The Fairfax
County School Board has agreed to pay more than $72,000 in legal
fees to teacher Sean Lanigan,
who was falsely accused, jailed and then acquitted of molesting a 12-year-old
girl, ending a lawsuit Lanigan filed to recover most of his costs.
The county's
payout is $72,838, although that does not include fees for the lawyers Fairfax
hired to fight Lanigan's request for nearly a year, nor does it include the
fees Lanigan incurred to obtain the reimbursement.
Defending himself
against two felony sex abuse charges in 2010 cost Lanigan, 45, about $125,000.
State law allows a county or state employee who is cleared of criminal charges
to recover legal fees and expenses but not other costs, which for Lanigan were
about $18,000. Court records show Lanigan first sought $107,838 for his fees
and expenses in July 2010, two months after his acquittal in Fairfax County
Circuit Court.
Eight months
later, the school board voted to offer Lanigan $60,000. Lanigan then sued for
the entire amount.
With a trial date
approaching, the school board agreed in a closed session Thursday to pay
$72,838: Lanigan's original request, minus $35,000 he received in an insurance
payment from the Fairfax
County Federation of Teachers union, a school official and Lanigan's
lawyer said.
Lanigan said
Friday that he is not satisfied with how the settlement came to a close.
"This has
been two years of long work," Lanigan said. "It does not make me
financially whole, and it's not as if the court case never happened."
He acknowledged
that state law did not require Fairfax to reimburse his full costs, "but
if they wanted to truly back their teacher, they would take care of me,"
Lanigan said.
John Torre, a
Fairfax schools spokesman, said in a statement that the school board agreed to
cover Lanigan's legal fees that were not already paid to him by his union
insurance policy.
The school board
and Lanigan "reached a settlement on essentially the same terms that were
offered to him last November," Torre said in the statement.
William
Reichhardt, Lanigan's attorney, strongly disagreed with the claim
that the terms were "essentially the same" as in November, but he
declined to discuss specifics.
"It took an
extremely lengthy period of time to get to this result," Reichhardt said,
"which as far as I'm concerned could have been done long before last
November."
Thomas Cawley,
the lead attorney for the school board, did not return a message seeking
comment.
Lanigan, a married
father of three, was a well-respected physical education teacher at Centre Ridge
Elementary School in Centreville, the boys soccer coach at Herndon High
School and a coach of various other youth soccer teams. In January
2010, a sixth-grade student at Centre Ridge told her parents that Lanigan had
picked her up in the school gymnasium, briefly fondled her, then carried her to
an equipment room and lay "kind of on top of her" on a stack of
tumbling mats, according to a police report.
The incident
happened while three other children were in the gym with school in session, the
girl said.
The girl's parents
reported the complaint to school officials, who called police. But Fairfax
child sex crimes detectives Nicole
Christian and Rich Mullins
did not interview the girl, instead watching as she was interviewed by a county
social worker. Witnesses said Lanigan had reprimanded the girl for verbally
abusing younger children, that she faced the loss of her positions as a safety
patrol and in-school news reporter, and that she told them: "Mr. Lanigan's
a jerk. I'm going to make him pay."
School employees
also testified that tumbling mats were not kept in the room where the girl said
she was taken, and that such mats would not fit in the cramped space.
The detectives
interviewed a friend of the accuser who corroborated her account. Two boys also
in the gym said they didn't see anything. The detectives interviewed Lanigan,
who said he might have picked the girl up, but that he didn't fondle or lay on
her.
Christian obtained
warrants charging Lanigan with abduction and aggravated sexual battery of a
child under 13, and ordered him to surrender on a Friday afternoon. He was not
able to appear before a judge for four days, time he spent in the Fairfax
County jail as an accused child molester. Fairfax police issued a news release
with his photo and home address, and the allegation attracted local media
attention.
Fairfax Police
Chief David M.
Rohrer said Friday he could not comment on the case.
Lanigan's lawyers
investigated and thought they could persuade Fairfax Commonwealth's Attorney Raymond F.
Morrogh to drop the case. But Morrogh refused, having previously
prosecuted another popular teacher who eventually pleaded guilty to molesting a
student. Morrogh did not respond to a request for comment Friday.
Lanigan testified
at trial that he did not molest the girl. The girl admitted telling her friends
she "hated" Lanigan, and she clarified that he did not lay on top of
her, but rather over her. The case went to the jury with Lanigan facing a
possible 40 years in prison.
The jury took 47
minutes to acquit Lanigan of both charges.
But Fairfax
schools declined to allow Lanigan back into Centre Ridge, instead reassigning
him to South Lakes
High School.
When the school
district stalled on Lanigan's request for financial reimbursement, he agreed to
tell his story to The
Washington Post, which was featured in an article last year in April.
Lanigan said the article caused him to receive thousands of dollars in
donations to help defray his costs, and he and his wife were featured on NBC's
"Today" show.
The settlement of
the suit does not cover Lanigan's legal costs for the current case, which
neither he nor Reichhardt would disclose. The county's legal fees were not
available Friday.