The legal morass widened for the Catlin Gabel School Wednesday when four additional former students filed a civil suit seeking $9 million in damages against the exclusive private school claiming they were sexually abused by their teachers.

Amid the allegations of inappropriate touching, molestation, harassment and sex abuse against four former Catlin teachers, the new plaintiffs also attack the school itself and its leadership. They allege Catlin was negligent in failing for years to adequately investigate claims of abuse and in not reporting its concerns to the police.

The four plaintiffs are seeking $2.25 million each for the “psychological injuries” along with pain, suffering and emotional distress.

Catlin has gotten credit for the vigilant attitude its leaders have shown since 2018, when they hired a Portland lawyer to investigate abuse claims. It also won plaudits for transparency after releasing a report of the lawyer’s findings to the press and the public.

The report was explosive, naming names and detailing repeated instances of former Catlin teachers grooming and sexually abusing students. In response, the Washington County Sheriff’s Office opened a criminal investigation.

But Peter Janci, one of the Portland lawyers representing the former students, said Catlin deserves more criticism than praise. This is a school that by its own account spent much of the last 40 years looking the other way as a handful of teachers preyed on their students, he said. Catlin even stiff-armed law enforcement at times in hopes of keeping a potential scandal hidden, Janci said.

Megan Johnson, formerly of the Washington County District Attorney’s office, is joining Janci in this case. Johnson, now in private practice, claims that during her prosecution of former Catlin coach Deonte Huff in 2013, the school was of little help.

Huff was accused of second-degree sexual abuse after investigators became convinced that Huff was having a sexual relationship with a female Catlin student.

“During my 17 years as a prosecutor handling sexual abuse crimes, Catlin Gabel was by far the least cooperative regarding child abuse allegations of any youth-serving organization I ever dealt with,” Johnson said. “Youth organizations usually jump at the chance to assist in criminal investigations to make sure threats to children are fully addressed. But not Catlin Gabel. In the end, the prosecution of Coach Huff occurred because parents – not the school – went to law enforcement.”

At the time, press accounts said Huff’s sexual relationship with the Catlin student came to prosecutors’ attention after her parents discovered she was at Huff’s house instead of at school.

Catlin officials said the current administration has cooperated fully with law enforcement and remains committed to finding the truth and helping the victims. By commissioning the report and identifying accused teachers, “we have been able to acknowledge what happened and apologize for Catlin’s failings,” school officials said in a written statement. “Our independent investigation helped shed light on our dark past and the former educators who abused their positions. In doing so, we tried to amplify the voices of survivors and hopefully help survivors heal.”

Catlin officials added that they contacted the Washington County Sheriff’s office when they launched the investigation in October 2018 and shared their findings with the sheriff’s office and the Oregon Department of Human Services.

The new suit is the first to go beyond Catlin Gabel’s own internal report in accusing a teacher who had not been identified by name before. The lawsuit names Roy Stubbs, who worked for Catlin from 1980 to 1982. Stubbs was not among the six teachers identified in the school’s internal investigation.

According to the lawsuit, Daniel Plumridge was a junior at Catlin when he met Stubbs while performing in the choir.

Plumridge alleges that Stubbs provided marijuana and nitrous oxide to he and other students. He claims that Stubbs propositioned him, touched his thigh, touched his penis and exposed his own penis to the student.

Stubbs left Catlin in 1982. He could not be reached for comment.

The three other defendants – Richardson “Dick” Shoemaker, Mark Peterson and Steve Richmond -- were all previously named in the school’s internal report.

The lawsuit accuses Peterson of aggressively courting a 16-year-old student named Fran Partridge. Peterson, a fifth grade teacher, accompanied a Catlin singing group on various trips around the region. The lawsuit alleges he pursued her for a romantic relationship and that on more than four separate occasions, they kissed. He once coaxed her onto a bed, exposed himself and ask her to touch him, the suit alleges.

Peterson has other detractors among former Catlin students. The Oregonian/OregonLive has learned that several former students – all of them men – claim Peterson physically abused them when they were in his class.

They allege that Peterson would grab them, throw them to the ground, and pull them down the stairs that led from the door into his classroom.

Luke Owings, now a Tacoma software entrepreneur, says he was one of those fifth graders who feared Peterson. He told The Oregonian/OregonLive that his time came one day when he was not focused on his math problems. Owings said Peterson grabbed his shoulders and shook him violently. He said he was terrified and has never forgotten that day.

“Mark Peterson was a big, scary guy,” said Phil Buchanan, another former Catlin student now living in New England. “This is not a way of handling discipline. It was 1980, not 1950.”

Some of Peterson’s former students who allege they suffered physical abuse -- now in their 30s and 40s -- are furious their allegations were not mentioned in Catlin’s internal report or in the media.

None of the male students have yet filed suit.

Peterson is now retired and living in Beaverton. He also could not be reached for comment. He reportedly told the Catlin investigator that “he had engaged in the reported conduct. He stated that the conduct happened when he was “young and stupid,” and he regretted his actions.”

Stephen Richmond, a former Catlin theater and shop teacher, is also named in the complaint. A male plaintiff in the lawsuit identified in the report only as A.A. alleges that Richmond groped his genitals on at least three occasions in approximately 1979 when the was 15.

According to the internal Catlin report, Richmond allegedly preyed on middle school students, both male and female. He denied any wrongdoing when reached by the Catlin investigator.

Richmond could not be located for comment. He denied to the investigator that he’d been involved in any sexual misconduct.

Shoemaker was one of the most popular instructors on the Catlin campus. But some of his female students said they learned to keep their distance, according to Catlin’s internal report. The report detailed instances in which he allegedly pulled girls onto his lap ostensibly to work on math problems, according to several former students. He allegedly would slip his hand under their clothes.

Plaintiffs allege that Shoemaker’s treatment of girls “was so open and notorious” that one of his classes of graduating 6th graders created and presented to Shoemaker a “dirty old man award.”

None of the parents, teachers or administrators in attendance did anything in response, the lawsuit claims. Shoemaker remained on staff another 19 years.

About the same time, Rebecca Green was in Shoemaker’s math class. In the recently filed lawsuit, she claims he intentionally peered at and groped her breasts “on more than 10 occasions.”

This marks the second time a former student has accused Shoemaker of groping her in a lawsuit. Earlier this month, Kim Wilson of Portland filed a suit claiming that she was molested at least 80 times by Shoemaker. She is seeking $4.5 million in damages.

Shoemaker died in August 2018.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs are going beyond the acts of individual teachers.

They claim Catlin leadership repeatedly failed to comply with so-called mandatory reporting laws. Like most other states, Oregon requires teachers and administrators to report abuse or suspected abuse to law enforcement.

“With this lawsuit, we intend to prove that Catlin Gabel engaged in a clear and consistent pattern of trying to handle things quietly and internally, without involving law enforcement,” said Johnson, the former prosecutor.

Catlin officials said Janci and Thomas have it flat wrong. In the Huff case, for example, school administrators notified Washington County law enforcement on May 7, 2013 that it had fired Huff. The next day, Catlin officials said, he was arrested.

But the lawyers for the former students argue that Catlin’s own internal report, in which the school acknowledges a history of sex abuse, is an example of the institution failing to comply with the law, the plaintiff’s lawyers said.

The lawsuit alleges that instead of notifying law enforcement, Catlin leaders chose to hire a lawyer to conduct the internal probe.

“Mandatory reporting of suspicions of child sexual abuse is not discretionary,” said Stephen Crew, one of the plaintiff’s lawyers. “It does not occur after private, internal investigations. It is immediate. Anything less is dangerous for children and our community.”

School officials said that they did contact law enforcement at the time they launched their internal investigation in late 2018.