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WELLSBURG - A total of nine individual lawsuits now have been filed on behalf of female student-athletes who utilized the girls locker rooms at Brooke High School since the start of the new school year.
The complaints - filed in Brooke County Circuit Court - seek monetary damages for the students in an amount to be determined at trial, along with interest, court costs and attorney fees.
Four of the young women are students at Brooke High School, while the other five are visiting students forced to use the girls locker room at Brooke County High School, according to information provided by Wheeling attorneys Teresa Toriseva and Joshua Miller.
While the names of the defendants weren't listed, Toriseva indicates there also were suits filed on behalf of three John Marshall High School students, one student from Buckeye Local High School and one from The Linsly School, she noted.
The complaints list as plaintiffs Brooke County Schools, the Brooke County Board of Education and Eric James, the former principal at Brooke High School.
James, 53, faces two felony charges following the discovery of multiple cameras in the girls locker room areas at Brooke High School. He is presently being held in the West Virginia Northern Regional Jail on $100,000 cash bond and he faces charges including intentionally intercepting or attempting to intercept wire, oral or electronic communication and breaking and entering a nonresidence.
The lawsuits have been filed without the names of the students to protect them from retaliation, targeting, harassment, public outrage and for fear of her own safety, the lawyers state in the complaint. They write they will not release their identities unless specifically ordered to do so by a court.
The complaint indicates at least one female student would often be required to use the locker rooms when the doors were locked.
"Oddly, defendant James would wait for her at the locker room door, unlock it, let her in, and then disappear," it states. "Upon information and belief, he was (allegedly) disappearing to go view the live camera footage while (student) was in the locker room."
It is believed the recording devices captured audio and video. It is not known if the videos and/or images "were downloaded to a hard drive, how many times they were downloaded, or if they were downloaded to a portable memory device," the complaint continues.
It also is not known if the videos and/or images were shared with or viewed by anyone except James.
The complaint alleges he "acted with malicious purpose, in bad faith, or wantonly, and manifestly outside the scope of his employment when he installed and operated the recording devices in the girls' locker room at Brooke County High School to visually portray the plaintiff in the nude, without her consent.
"Upon information and belief, Defendant Eric James knowingly disclosed, or, alternatively, threatened to disclose the images, videos, and recordings of the plaintiff with the intent to harass, intimidate, threaten, humiliate, embarrass, or coerce the plaintiff," the complaint states.
Brooke County Schools and the Brooke County Board of Education "knew or should have known" that James would commit the acts alleged in this complaint, according to the complaint.
It singles out the board and school district for negligence, negligent hiring, negligent supervision and negligent retention of James.
Last week, the Fitzsimmons Law Firm PLLC announced it had filed a class-action lawsuit on behalf of a Brooke High School student and other female students against James and the Brooke County Board of Education.