A former Maine high school principal exchanged thousands of inappropriate text messages with a 16-year-old student, and bought her a car, a new lawsuit claims.
Andrew Cavanaugh, a former principal at Medomak Valley High School in Waldoboro, was named in a lawsuit filed Friday by the now-19-year-old woman who claims they sent each other 5,000 text messages between April and November 2017, the Bangor Daily News reports.
In some messages, Cavanaugh inquired about the teen’s love life and whether she was sexually active as a 16-year-old junior. He also asked the teen to send him a picture of herself in her prom dress, the lawsuit claims.
“It would be [hard] for you to not look sexy, but I get the point,” Cavanaugh allegedly wrote. “Send me a picture and I will tell you straight up how you look.”
In another message from October 2017, Cavanaugh allegedly wrote the teen: “I might have to give you a spanking.”
Three days later, Cavanaugh followed up, writing: “I bet if I slapped you a couple time you would be mine forever!,” according to the lawsuit.
Cavanaugh resigned from his job in December 2017 after a police investigation was launched into accusations of an inappropriate relationship between a student and staffer at the high school. No charges were ultimately filed against Cavanaugh, the newspaper reports.
The former student also named Chuck Nguyen, a social worker at the school, as a defendant in the lawsuit for not reporting the allegations of abuse to authorities.
Nguyen told her Cavanaugh was merely trying to be a “father figure” to her when she told him of the gifts the principal had given her, including personal hygiene products and a car he bought for her in July 2017, the lawsuit claims.
Cavanaugh told the teen “she could work for him” to pay off the car, according to the filing.
“Don’t worry cupcake, I won’t sell you into white slavery,” Cavanaugh allegedly wrote in one text message.
The teen was later pulled over for speeding in the car owned and registered to Cavanaugh, prompting the principal to tell her that he’d need the vehicle back, the lawsuit claims.
School officials and Nguyen did not return a request for comment, the newspaper reports. Attempts to reach Cavanaugh, of Rockport, early Tuesday were unsuccessful.