After a former teacher in the Norwalk-La Mirada Unified School district was convicted of sexual abuse and sentenced to 30 years to life in prison, two of his victims are suing the district for allowing him to return after they reported the abuse.
One of Scott Waln’s victims, now 19, was sexually abused by him when she was in the sixth grade at Los Alisos Middle School in Norwalk when she was 11 years old.
“I wished it would’ve been sooner and I was believed,” the young woman, who requested anonymity, said of Waln’s conviction and sentence.
Dominique Boubion, an attorney with the Carrillo Law Firm who is bringing the suit against the school district on her two clients’ behalf, said Waln lured the now 19-year-old woman into his classroom when she was isolated and would have no way out.
“She gets into the classroom and the door closes behind her,” Boubion explained. “She was sexually molested by Scott Waln. She reported it to the school. The police investigated and he was removed from campus. If you can believe it, he was let back on campus the following year and many more children were victimized as a result of that.”
The young woman said she wasn’t seen or heard by school officials and that Waln’s return to teaching, while she was still a student there, was traumatic.
“I had to constantly pass by him, constantly had to remember stuff, constantly had to be afraid,” she said.
The 19-year-old’s mother, who also requested anonymity, said no one believed her daughter, that there wasn’t enough evidence. Then it happens again to other students.
Waln was arrested in 2022 after another student accused him of sexual abuse.
“A few years later, we finally got the justice that I deserved,” the 19-year-old told KTLA. “I have to realize that I’m no longer that little girl I once was. I’m not happy anymore. I don’t trust anybody.”
The mother of a third former student, whose case Waln was not convicted of, is also a part of the lawsuit against the district.
She told KTLA that her daughter was touched by the teacher in 2021 when she was 11 years old and a student in his math and science classes. The mother said she immediately noticed a change in her daughter.
“My 11-year-old had the face of a ghost, no life in her whatsoever,” she said.
After her daughter told her what had happened, she pulled her from the class.
KTLA has reached out to the Norwalk-La Mirada School District for comment and is awaiting a response.
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