Advertisement
Canada markets closed
  • S&P/TSX

    22,167.03
    +59.95 (+0.27%)
     
  • S&P 500

    5,254.35
    +5.86 (+0.11%)
     
  • DOW

    39,807.37
    +47.29 (+0.12%)
     
  • CAD/USD

    0.7387
    +0.0014 (+0.20%)
     
  • CRUDE OIL

    83.11
    +1.76 (+2.16%)
     
  • Bitcoin CAD

    95,683.95
    +2,209.85 (+2.36%)
     
  • CMC Crypto 200

    885.54
    0.00 (0.00%)
     
  • GOLD FUTURES

    2,254.80
    +42.10 (+1.90%)
     
  • RUSSELL 2000

    2,124.55
    +10.20 (+0.48%)
     
  • 10-Yr Bond

    4.2060
    +0.0100 (+0.24%)
     
  • NASDAQ futures

    18,465.00
    -38.75 (-0.21%)
     
  • VOLATILITY

    13.01
    +0.23 (+1.80%)
     
  • FTSE

    7,952.62
    +20.64 (+0.26%)
     
  • NIKKEI 225

    40,168.07
    -594.66 (-1.46%)
     
  • CAD/EUR

    0.6844
    +0.0039 (+0.57%)
     

Ky. principal in controversial homecoming photos was sued over supervision on school trip

Silas Walker

The Kentucky principal shown this week in homecoming photos depicting students performing lap dances was accused in a 2019 lawsuit of not properly chaperoning a school trip during which one student allegedly raped another student.

The lawsuit filed in Perry Circuit Court against Donald “Happy” Mobelini and two Hazard High School teachers is ongoing. A jury trial is scheduled for August 2022, according to court records.

Mobelini is also the mayor of Hazard.

Attorneys for both sides in the lawsuit did not immediately comment Wednesday.

Because of the nature of the allegations, the Herald-Leader is not naming the young woman who alleges in the lawsuit that she was physically and sexually assaulted on a school trip to New York City and Washington, D.C., in 2017.

ADVERTISEMENT

She alleges in the lawsuit that when she was a junior at Hazard High School in 2017, Mobelini, the principal and two teacher chaperones did not check on students at various points during the trip. The lawsuit alleges that the students drank and that the female student who filed the lawsuit was physically and sexually assaulted by a fellow male student.

Among other things, the lawsuit is asking that the former student be compensated for her distress. The lawsuit claims that Mobelini and the other adults did not hold the students “to a strict account for their conduct.”

The former student said the chaperones did not handle the investigation into her allegations appropriately.

Mobelini and the other chaperones have asked that the lawsuit be dismissed.

The junior students were twice left unsupervised to walk through the Times Square area of New York City. Several members of the group had purchased alcohol while on the streets of New York City, the lawsuit alleged.

At some point between 4:00 and 5:00 a.m. on October 29, 2017, the student was walked to her room by a fellow junior male student, and was physically and sexually assaulted, according to the lawsuit.

In 2008, Mobelini was investigated twice for alcohol incidents involving students.

The Herald-Leader reported that in one situation, photos surfaced online of him driving students around as they smoked and drank alcohol. Mobelini came under similar criticism in 2008 after police caught students drinking on the school’s football field moments after he left them. Mobelini did not get into trouble in either case because he was unaware of the drinking, a Herald-Leader article at the time said.

An investigation by the Hazard Independent superintendent is underway after photos appeared on social media that appear to show scantily clad male teens lap dancing at a school wide homecoming event. Female teens wore Hooters t-shirts at the event.

Ky. school’s ‘man pageant,’ with lap dances and teens in Hooters shirts, under investigation