A third lawsuit has been filed against Santa Paula Unified School District, alleging that the district failed to protect a McKevett Elementary School student from a counselor’s sexual abuse.
Filed July 20 in Ventura County Superior Court, the complaint accuses the district of various forms of negligence as well as intentional infliction of emotional distress.
The document also accuses David Lane Braff Jr. — who has been criminally charged with sexually assaulting 15 children during his two-decade education career — of assault, sexual battery and gender violence.
“When you have a prolific pedophile like Braff around kids and he is not properly supervised or vetted, he’s like a shark in the tank,” said Courtney Thom, the victim’s attorney. “Child molestation doesn’t just steal a child’s innocence but truly rewires their sense of safety, their sense of self, their sense of the world, and unfortunately, it leaves wounds and trauma that last a lifetime.”
Braff did not respond to emails sent through the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office, and Jeffrey Weinstein, superintendent of Santa Paula Unified, declined requests for interviews and comment.
Lawsuit accuses district of negligence
Thom’s firm now represents two of Braff’s alleged victims. Another one of his former students also sued Santa Paula Unified on May 30, 2025, listing the same causes of action.
The two latest plaintiffs, now 18, are referred to only as Jane Does.
The complaints state that in 2015, after allegedly sexually abusing students at other schools and youth organizations in the region, Braff was hired by Santa Paula Unified as a teacher and counselor at McKevett Elementary School.
Braff’s brief periods of employment with so many different agencies should have been a red flag to district administration from the start, Thom said.
“That’s not normal, and it begs the question why he’s moving around at the rate that he is,” she said. “It’s the district’s duty to make sure that the people they bring into the school to care for children are safe, and clearly they did not do that in this case at all.”
At McKevett, Braff used his position of authority and trust to groom and sexually abuse vulnerable students, including the two Jane Does, in his campus office, according to the lawsuits.
Thom said he took advantage of the school’s largely minority demographics, knowing that lower-income Latino families may be more hesitant to discuss sexual assault, contact school administrators or involve law enforcement.
Upon receiving reports of Braff’s alleged misconduct, the district took no meaningful action and ultimately allowed the abuse to continue, the complaints assert.
Santa Paula Unified staff failed to report Braff to law enforcement despite laws requiring them to do so, according to the documents.
The lawsuits contend that the district initiated an investigation into Braff and told him to discontinue his sexually inappropriate behavior with students but continued to allow him on campus without adequate supervision.
The district deliberately concealed the allegations and investigation from students and families in an effort to protect its reputation, according to the complaints.
The district’s actions ultimately emboldened Braff and his misconduct, and McKevett became his “sexual abuse breeding ground,” the lawsuits state.
“Within SPUSD, Braff was known to act sexually inappropriately, effecting a desire to groom and determine who was vulnerable to his advances,” the July document reads. “McKevett operated as nothing more than a grooming opportunity for Braff’s sexual desires with young females.”
In 2019, the lawsuit alleges, after multiple reports of Braff’s inappropriate behavior with female students, Santa Paula Unified allowed him to resign without informing parents of the concerns.
Because of the district’s failure to take action against him, the lawsuit contends, Braff went on to sexually abuse students at other schools in the region.
Thom said the practice of “passing the trash” is one she sees school districts employ far too often.
“That’s the really devastating part of how school districts deal with pedophiles and monsters within their system,” she said. “To make it easier on the school, as opposed to protecting the children, they move the problem to another school.”
Santa Paula Unified has not yet filed responses to either complaint.
Weinstein, the superintendent, previously said the district took immediate action when the first allegations surfaced by reporting the matter to the county’s child protective services unit and placing Braff on paid administrative in October 2018. He said that during the leave, Braff had no access to campus.
The administrator said the district conducted an internal investigation with its legal counsel and the Santa Paula Police Department and then contacted the Commission on Teacher Credentialing to have Braff’s credential revoked.
Ventura County court records show that Santa Paula Unified faces at least one other lawsuit related to Braff’s alleged misconduct.
An April 17, 2024 lawsuit filed by a different law firm asserts that the district’s negligence resulted in Braff sexually abusing an unnamed McKevett student from 2015 through 2019. The student reported the abuse directly to the principal, and the principal interviewed the student without parent consent and failed to inform the parents of what the student reported, according to the complaint.
In that case, the district denied all allegations in a written response and filed a cross-complaint against the minor. A jury trial is scheduled to begin Nov. 16.
Braff faces life in prison
After resigning from McKevett, Braff worked for Bright Star Schools in Los Angeles County, Ventura Unified School District and finally Ingenium Charter Middle School in Los Angeles County until his Nov. 22, 2024 arrest, according to authorities.
He held his credential until it was suspended Nov. 26, 2024, a few days after he was initially charged with 17 felony counts of lewd acts upon a child in relation to six students at McKevett, according to authorities.
The Ventura County District Attorney’s Office amended its complaint twice to file additional charges after discovering more victims.
Braff has now pleaded not guilty to 33 counts of lewd acts upon a child and denied 141 special allegations, including that the victims were vulnerable and that he took advantage of a position of trust, court records indicate.
During a preliminary hearing, DA’s office investigators testified that 13 of the 15 victims were students at McKevett Elementary School, ranging from kindergartners through fifth graders when the alleged assaults occurred.
The investigators said some students reported experiencing only one incident, while others reported that the incidents spanned as many as four school years. The investigators testified that the majority of students said Braff called them into his office for counseling, closed or locked the door, directed them to sit on his lap and then touched various areas of their bodies, including their private parts.
One of the victims was a student at Bright Star Schools in Los Angeles, where Braff worked as a counselor from 2019 through 2021, and another was a summer volunteer at the Conejo Recreation and Park District’s Borchard Community Center in Thousand Oaks, where Braff worked from 2000 through 2005, the investigators said.
Braff faces a maximum sentence of 825 years to life in state prison, according to the DA’s office. A pre-trial conference in his criminal case is set for Sept. 15. The 44-year-old remains in custody at Todd Road Jail and is not eligible for bail.
In the lawsuit filed in 2025, a hearing is set for Sept. 11, and in this year’s lawsuits, a hearing is set for Dec. 18. The two victims seek damages and jury trials.
Thom said that for her two clients, justice in the civil suits looks like change. Santa Paula Unified and all districts must prioritize protecting children and reporting suspected incidents of abuse, and staff should be criminally prosecuted if they breach those mandated duties, she said.
The attorney said she is confident that there are additional victims of Braff who have not yet come forward. To them, she has a message.
“Speak up, and you will be believed,” she said. “It’s one of the hardest things to do, but by speaking up, you’re going to protect other children.”
Makena Huey is an investigative and watchdog reporter for the Ventura County Star. Reach her at makena.huey@vcstar.com. This story was made possible by a grant from the Ventura County Community Foundation’s Fund to Support Local Journalism.
This article originally appeared on Ventura County Star: Santa Paula Unified, ex-counselor face third lawsuit over sexual abuse
Reporting by Makena Huey, Ventura County Star / Ventura County Star
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By Makena Huey, Ventura County Star | USA TODAY Network
