Desert Sands ignored complaints about a pedophile. Now they will pay $1.5M to one of his students.

The Desert Sands Unified School District will pay $1.5 million to settle the lawsuit for a former student who was molested by Robert Keith Bryan, a pedophile teacher who was left in the classroom despite numerous reports of inappropriate touching.

The settlement agreement was offered by Desert Sands earlier this month and accepted by the girl’s attorneys last week, according to federal court documents obtained by The Desert Sun.

“This amount was something that was in the best interest of this girl, so she could get closure, avoid a trial and move on with her life,” said David Ring, the girl’s attorney. “But anyone will tell you there is no amount of money that will compensate a child for being sexually abused by an adult.”

Mary Perry, a Desert Sands spokeswoman, said Wednesday morning the district had no comment on the settlement because “final court documents need to be signed.” However, Ring said the current settlement agreement is "binding."

INVESTIGATION: Fifteen kids reported this pedophile teacher. He stayed in the classroom anyway.

This case is the second lawsuits about Bryan to be settled by Desert Sands. Another student was paid about $650,000 to drop her claim in 2016. At least three other former students have ongoing lawsuits. Attorneys with two high-powered Los Angeles law firms have said they are in discussion with a dozen more victims who may file suits.

Ring said this settlement may serve as a "benchmark for future cases," but he stressed that every lawsuit is different because each victim had faced varying levels of abuse.

Bryan, 64, worked a 34-year career in Coachella Valley Unified and Desert Sands Unified schools before being arrested for touching eight students at Gerald Ford Elementary School in 2012. Bryan later pleaded guilty to four felonies and was sentenced to nine years in prison last July.

MORE: New victim comes forward: 'They were betrayed'

Earlier this year, a Desert Sun investigation revealed that at least 15 other students had previously reported Bryan to school district officials for inappropriate touching. Those complaints were buried, disbelieved, ignored and forgotten. Bryan was shifted from school to school, but he kept teaching.

“You can be mad at the criminal, the predator, because he’s the one who did this, but the scariest thing is that it happened in the school,” said Kim, the mother of the girl who just settled her lawsuit against Desert Sands, in a prior interview. Kim's full name is being withheld to protect her daughter’s identity. The Desert Sun does not publish the identities of sexual assault victims without their permission.

“I trusted the school district, and that’s who failed us," Kim said.

Desert Sands Unified had a chance to fire Bryan in the early '90s due to repeated complaints, but he kept his job because a district leader did not believe students were telling the truth. Over the next decade, all of the officials that knew about the complaints either left the district, retired or died. By the mid-2000s, a new generation of district leaders were unaware Bryan had a history of touching students. The evidence was still sitting in Bryan’s personnel file, but nobody bothered to read it.

If they had, this is what they would have found:

Bryan was first accused of touching children while working for Coachella Valley Unified in 1985. When he resigned, the district agreed not to tell anyone about the allegations, then recommended him to other school districts, including Desert Sands, where he got a job.

Bryan was investigated by the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department for touching 10 girls at Lincoln Elementary in 1992, but no charges were filed. Desert Sands also became aware of the prior allegation at Coachella Valley Unified, but left Bryan in the classroom anyway.

Bryan was reprimanded again for touching another girl’s chest in March 1994.

Six months later, in September 1994, Bryan was accused of reaching under a student’s t-shirt to rub her back. An investigation led to a 10-day suspension – the most serious discipline Bryan ever faced from the school district.

In 2007, a male student reported Bryan was touching his female classmates on their lower backs and leaning over their desks to look down their shirts. It appears the district did not investigate. School staff recommended the boy go to therapy.

Finally, in 2012, Bryan resigned after he was arrested for molesting eight girls, including the daughter of a police officer, in a single class at Gerald Ford Elementary School in Indian Wells.

In the five years since Bryan was arrested, Desert Sands Unified has repeatedly refused to answer any questions about the teacher or the molestation case. After the Desert Sun investigation published in March, the district released a statement to parents calling the report "unsettling" but insisting it did not represent the district as a whole.

“Of course we feel so horrible about what happened,” Perry, the spokeswoman, said in a brief phone interview in March. “But the people who handled this situation aren’t here anymore.”

MORE: Desert Sands: 'We feel so horrible'

Investigative reporter Brett Kelman can be reached at 760 778 4642 or by email at brett.kelman@desertsun.com. You can follow him on Twitter @tdsBrettKelman.