‘Shocks the conscience’: Federal magistrate chastises Lorena ISD principal over lack of action in teacher’s sexual abuse cases

LORENA, Texas (KWTX) - A federal magistrate in Waco issued a scathing review of a Lorena principal’s actions in his recommendation that a motion by the Lorena school district and the principal to dismiss a lawsuit filed by the parents of a pre-K student who was sexually abused by a Lorena Primary School teacher be denied.

In a blistering, 15-page report and recommendation to U.S. District Judge Alan Albright, U.S. Magistrate Jeffrey C. Manske said that Lorena Primary School Principal April Jewell’s “lack of executive action” in the wake of reports about teacher Nicolas Scott Crenshaw’s improper behavior around two of his female students “shocks the conscience.”

Manske’s recommendation will be forwarded to Albright for a formal ruling on the school district’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit.

The parents of the child, who have since moved from Lorena to Collin County, filed the lawsuit in August using the pseudonyms Mary Doe and John Doe and identified their daughter as Jane Doe. They explained in the lawsuit they were using the pseudonyms to protect Jane’s identity and privacy as a minor and survivor of criminal sexual abuse.

The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages from Lorena ISD and Jewell, principal of Lorena Primary School.

John Wilson, a spokesman for Lorena ISD, said Tuesday that Lorena ISD administrators are aware of Manske’s recommendation and will move forward with defending the claims in the lawsuit.

“The District and Ms. Jewell filed their respective Motions to Dismiss at the outset of the litigation before engaging in discovery. When a court undertakes the review of a Motion to Dismiss at this stage in the litigation, the court is required to take all well-pleaded factual allegations as true. And in taking the factual allegations as true, the court must decide if the plaintiffs can move forward with discovery. This is what has happened here,” Wilson wrote in a statement.

Crenshaw, a long-term substitute teacher, pleaded guilty in May 2023 to five counts of aggravated sexual assault of a young child, one count of continuous sexual abuse of a young child and one count of indecency with a child by contact in the sexual abuse of Jane Doe, who was 5, and her 4-year-old female classmate during the 2020-2021 school year.

Crenshaw, 29, was sentenced to 40 years in prison and must serve the entire sentence before he can be released.

Jewell is the only Lorena ISD employee named as a defendant in the lawsuit. However, the suit names other employees who the suit alleges “knew from their own observations, multiple employees’ credible complaints about Crenshaw’s inappropriate interactions with Jane Doe, photographic evidence that Crenshaw routinely laid down under a blanket with Jane during nap time, had her straddle him while he was lying down, placed her on his lap, dressed her in his clothing, isolated her in the classroom and behind locked doors, and was otherwise obsessed with the young child. At the same time, school officials knew that Jane complained of vaginal and stomach pain.”

According to the lawsuit, the girl suffers from post-traumatic stress syndrome, physical pain, anxiety, anger, nightmares, fear and distrust of others. She is afraid of going to school and often tries to avoid going, the lawsuit alleges.

The lawsuit alleges that Jewell did more than “look the other way.” She and other administrators made it easier for Crenshaw to get away with the abuses and harder for conscientious employees to intervene by eliminating supervision over Crenshaw, permitting him to have unmonitored access to the girl behind locked doors and retaliating against employees who photographed and reported his “highly inappropriate” conduct with the girl, the lawsuit alleges.

Also, school officials failed to properly investigate Crenshaw and failed to report his conduct to the girl’s parents, Child Protective Services or law enforcement, the suit claims.

Manske’s report says the plaintiffs pleaded facts “that Jewell was given direct reports of inappropriate behavior from multiple school officials and failed to even ask ethe questions necessary to investigate the report.”

“Despite these reports and photographs, Jewell did nothing,” according to Manske’s report. “It took a criminal investigation by law enforcement and another student suffering the sexual abused suffered by Mary’s five-year-old daughter. The lack of executive action from Jewell as a principal of an elementary school, whose job is to ensure the education, safety, and health of her students, shocks the conscience.”

Manske rejected Jewell’s claim that she is entitled to qualified immunity, which shields government officials from civil liability for federal law claims unless their conduct “violates a clearly established constitutional right.”

Manske noted that qualified immunity shields “all but the plainly incompetent or those who knowingly violate the law,” and wrote the 5th U.S. Circuit of Appeals “considers qualified immunity the norm and admonishes courts to deny a defendant immunity only in rare circumstances.”

“As discussed, Jane pleads plausible facts to support her claim that Jewell violated her constitutional right to be protected from sexual abuse …” Manske wrote. “Plaintiff has, therefore, stated a claim that overcomes qualified immunity and Jewell’s Motion should be denied.”

The girl’s parents, who are represented by former Waco attorney Bill Johnston, of Odessa, and Monica Beck, of Traverse City, Michigan, are seeking unspecified damages for past, present and future physical and psychological pain, suffering and impairment; medical and counseling bills and related expenses; impaired educational and earning capacity; and punitive damages.

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