Five former Catlin Gabel students filed lawsuits against the exclusive private school Tuesday, making new allegations, some in horrific detail, about the sexual and emotional abuse they say they suffered at the hands of their teachers.

One of the plaintiffs alleged she was in seventh grade when she entered into what she thought was a romantic relationship with one of her middle school teachers. In her lawsuit, she alleges he would take her to a windowless storage room beneath the school library where he would kiss her, fondle her breasts and she would perform oral sex on him.

She was 12.

Her teacher was Fred Corbett, she alleges in the lawsuit.

Corbett, reached at his home in Coos Bay, vociferously denied he had any inappropriate relationship with any student at Catlin. “This is unbelievable,” he said. “The allegations are false. I don’t even know how you begin to fight charges like this.”

The new lawsuits bring to 10 the number of former students who have gone to court seeking redress since the school released a stunning internal report in December detailing a long history of sex abuse perpetrated by faculty and other former staffers. Catlin has apologized repeatedly and claims it is now taking proactive steps to protect its students.

The litigation is almost certainly going to be expensive for Catlin. Several of the plaintiffs allege school leaders were repeatedly warned by students of the abuse and did little if anything in response. It will be difficult for Catlin to deny those claims as their own report also details warnings that went unheeded..

Portland lawyers Gilion Dumas and Ashley Vaughn represent the former students in the new lawsuits. “Catlin’s report shows that the school did not follow mandatory reporting laws,” Vaughn said. “Instead of calling the police when the school learned a teacher was physically or sexually abusing a child, Catlin administrators denied the abuse or ignored it. Because of the school’s inaction, children continued to be abused.”

The new plaintiff says her relationship with Corbett lasted into her ninth grade year at Catlin. Described in the lawsuit as “naive and sexually inexperienced,” she was convinced they were in love. She “sincerely wanted Corbett, an adult man, to be her boyfriend and believed that he must care about her significantly because they were having sex,” the lawsuit alleged.

To express her feelings for Corbett, the girl wanted to buy him something. She saved up her allowance money and finally presented him with a gift. It was a Mickey Mouse watch.

Corbett, the lawsuit alleges, suggested to the girl that start taking birth control pills so they could “go further.”

The plaintiff, now in her 60s, is seeking $6 million in damages.

Dumas said Corbett is Employee 2 in the school’s investigation summary. The report named six former employees as sexual abusers. It detailed the allegations against three others, but did not name them. Employee 2 allegedly “preyed upon at least two other female students,” the Catlin report said.

When informed of some of the details in the lawsuit, Corbett said none if it is true. He acknowledged that he heard from the Catlin investigator about six months ago. “She seemed unprepared or confused,” Corbett said. “It became clear to me that she had me confused with Bob Ashe.”

Ashe is another former Catlin instructor named in the report as one of the sexual abusers. Ashe is dead.

In another of the suits, two former students allege they were both sexually abused by Sam Crawley, their charismatic English teacher. Crawley painstakingly groomed both girls when they were in high school, praising their talent and writing skills, the lawsuit alleges.

One of the plaintiffs in the Crawley case is Emily White, whose case was detailed in a story published by The Oregonian/OregonLive. “He almost immediately began grooming her for a sexual relationship by isolating her from her friends, peers, family, and other teachers at Catlin Gabel and manipulating her to become emotionally codependent on him,” alleges White, a Seattle writer and educator.

The other alleged Crawley victim is not named. But her story is much the same as White’s. Crawley managed to isolate her, she claimed, which cost her friendships with other students and “also estranged her from her family as the relationship had to be kept secret.”

Crawley eventually had sex with both White and the other plaintiff, according to the filings.

Crawley could not be reached for comment.

Another of the lawsuits filed today is the first filed against a current Catlin teacher. It is also the first to claim her abuse was mental and emotional rather than sexual.

Former student Sarah Jones claims Catlin art instructor Dale Rawls mentally abused her in 1994 when he humiliated her during a school assembly when she was an eighth-grader.

Rawls allegedly accused Jones of “dating her way through the 8th grade,” the lawsuit says. Rawls presented her with a windup pair of plastic lips,” it claims, saying she left the assembly in tears.

“What Dale Rawls did came out of the blue,” Jones said. "I thought he was going to talk about how I played soccer or had a major role in the class play, like the other teachers talked about the other kids. Instead, he humiliated me on purpose and made it about promiscuity,” said Jones. “I’ve been terrified of speaking in public since then or even speaking up in a group for fear of humiliation at that level.”

After the suit was filed, Catlin Gabel placed Rawls on leave. The move will give school administrators time “to look into the allegations.”

Rawls could not be reached for comment.

In a fourth lawsuit, an unnamed former student claims she was fondled and abused by Richard “Dick” Shoemaker, a popular former sixth-grade teacher who has been the subject of several earlier lawsuits and the focus of much of Catlin’s unwanted notoriety.

Shoemaker died in August 2018.

Jeff Manning

503-294-7606

jmanning@oregonian.com