A young woman who was sexually assaulted at a friend's home while she was a student at George Washington High School said Thursday that her school counselor discouraged her from pursuing a criminal case against the perpetrator.
The woman, now 20, testified in Kanawha Circuit Court Thursday on behalf of the defense in the civil case of GW Counselor Mary "Kackie" Eller, who is suing GW Principal George Aulenbacher and the Kanawha County Board of Education on claims of defamation, invasion of privacy and being portrayed in a false light.
Thursday was the third full day of testimony in the case, in which Eller says Aulenbacher wanted her to retire and sent an email containing personnel information related to Eller and some students to GW faculty and staff in March 2015. She also claims she was wrongfully suspended by Kanawha County Schools officials in February 2015.
Eller was suspended on Feb. 13, 2015. The father of the victim said in court Thursday he filed a complaint against Eller with the school district on Feb. 12 because he said Eller failed to notify law enforcement about his daughter being sexually assaulted. The father said he regularly had been in touch with law enforcement officials investigating the assault for three months prior to filing the complaint against Eller.
Eller said Wednesday she was made aware of the sexual assault within a couple of weeks of it happening, but she decided not to report it to law enforcement because the assault happened over the weekend at a student's home.
The assault happened Oct. 18, 2014, at a student's home while the student's parents were home and asleep, the victim testified Thursday.
At the time of the assault, the victim was a senior at GW, but she said she didn't return to the school after Christmas break because of the social and emotional ramifications of the assault, saying the perpetrator showed documents related to the incident to other students. She said Aulenbacher and the school's resource officer addressed the perpetrator at school when they became aware of what the perpetrator was doing.
One of the victim's friends told a counselor, who told Eller about the assault, and Eller made a joke about the perpetrator but didn't advise her about talking to law enforcement or offer any other support, the victim said. She said Eller never reached out to her again after the assault, even though the victim had to go to Eller's office to sign out to go to Carver Career Center each day.
Report of the assault made its way to law enforcement after a student who witnessed it told his father, a member of the West Virginia Army National Guard, on Nov. 12. The victim, the perpetrator and the witness all were in the National Guard Reserve Secondary Training program.
The witness' father reported it to officials in the National Guard Judge Advocate General Corps, or JAG, West Virginia Army National Guard Lt. Col. Kelly Ambrose said in court Thursday. Ambrose said she notified the South Charleston Police Department of the incident. The case later was handled by investigators in the Kanawha County Sheriff's Office, since it was outside of South Charleston's jurisdiction, and it was settled in juvenile court by the end of 2015, the victim said Thursday.
National Guard Maj. Bridget Saunders said she called Eller in November about the assault, and she said Eller didn't show much empathy in the matter and that Eller indicated she had no intention of taking any more action in the case. Saunders, who is trained to work with sexual assault victims, said it was her professional opinion Eller engaged in victim blaming, since students had been drinking alcohol the night of the assault.
The victim said she told her father about the assault on Nov. 16, after Ambrose, Saunders and JAG staff talked with her about it.
After the victim's father heard that Capital High School's principal was criminally charged with failing to report a sexual assault to law enforcement, he filed the complaint with Kanawha County Schools, because he thought Eller similarly had failed to report his daughter's assault.
Eller was notified of her suspension the afternoon of Feb. 13 and escorted from the school. She was suspended with pay until March 13, 2015, while district officials investigated the victim's father's claim. When the criminal charges were dropped against Capital's principal, no charges were sought against Eller.
While Eller was suspended, issues affecting Eller's students, including incomplete transcripts and financial aid applications, were discovered by students and counselors, GW Vice Principal of Curriculum Gerrianne Simmons said Thursday.
Aulenbacher said Tuesday he began keeping a list of the issues, and on March 9, 2015 he drafted an email including the incidents that he eventually intended to send to district officials. On March 9, he meant to send the e-mail to Simmons, but the auto-fill function in his email account instead led to him sending it to faculty and staff at GW after he typed "GE" into the "To" line of the email.
When she told Aulenbacher about the email being sent school-wide, she said he turned pale and was upset before he called Kanawha County Schools Superintendent Ron Duerring, and Duerring arranged for the email to be removed from the server.
Eller said Wednesday that email, along with being assigned to an office in a high-traffic area of school, was an attempt to shame and embarrass her.
Eller is seeking general compensatory damages, special damages and punitive damages in addition to court costs and attorneys fees.
Closing arguments in the case are expected to take place Friday.
Reach Lacie Pierson at lacie.pierson@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-1723 or follow @laciepierson on Twitter.