This week, a Los Angeles County jury released a $10 million verdict in a civil case on an alleged molestation that occurred at the Rose Bowl Aquatic Center in Pasadena in 2015, multiple news sources have reported.
The family of a boy, then 11 years old, who was allegedly molested in the locker room, filed the suit.
The jury on Monday found the accused patron, a then-57-year-old Leslie Dittert was 30 percent responsible, according to the Pasadena Star-News.
But the part of the ruling that is getting more attention is the fact that the jury found the Rose Bowl Aquatic Center 70 percent responsible and the facility will owe the family of the victim about $7 million. Dittert, who according to reports is believed to have fled the country, was a patron at the facility not an employee.
The attorney for the victim released this statement:
“The Rose Bowl Aquatics Center tried to keep this sexual assault case quiet, and even argued that it is not responsible for the safety of children at the facility,” Stephen G. Larson said in a statement. “It is the family’s sincere hope that this verdict will prompt the Center to implement new measures to protect children at its facility from abuse.”
The verdict raises questions about responsibility for incidents that occur in public places.
The Rose Bowl Aquatic Center’s President and Executive Director Kurt Knop said in a statement he and the center “respectfully disagree with the jury’s decision and will be reviewing this decision very carefully.
“We continue to believe that the person responsible for this heinous criminal act is Mr. Leslie Adam Dittert who has fled the country,” Knop said. “We are deeply saddened for the plaintiff and his family about this tragic event.”
The trial stemmed from a lawsuit filed last May, according to the Pasadena Star-News. It alleged that the Rose Bowl Aquatic Center did not meet its legal obligations to protect the boy, whose family requested anonymity for his privacy.
According to the Star-News, the lawsuit argued the center’s employees are mandated reporters, meaning the Rose Bowl Aquatic Club would be required to train them to identify and report potential child abuse. Under California law, anyone who is an “administrator or employee of a public or private youth center, youth recreation program, or youth organization” is a mandated reporter.
Before the alleged molestation, employees had communicated that Dittert was a “creep” and tried to keep an eye on him when he was at the pool facilities, the Star-News reported. Larson argued that they had not been properly trained under California law. If they had, he said, the boy’s molestation could have been prevented.
Knop told the Star-News that because none of his employees suspected a child had already been abused, which is the legal requirement to trigger calling the authorities, the center does not believe its staff could have done anything more to prevent the abuse, which happened in the locker room where employees do walk-throughs, but were not present at the time of the alleged incident.