A family that filed suit against the Wilton Board of Education and the Town of Wilton alleging that a former preschool employee sexually exploited their son, has now filed a settlement offer with the court, asking for more than $5 million. On Tuesday, Sept. 25, attorneys Paul Slager and Michael Kennedy of Silver, Golub and Teitell filed three offers of compromise–one for $5 million on behalf of ‘Boy Doe,’ and one each for ‘Mother Doe’ and ‘Father Doe’ for $150,000 apiece–in Stamford Superior Court.
The offer comes just four days after a case flow request was submitted by the same attorneys requesting a telephone conference “to discuss … the pending summary judgment.”
The lawsuit, filed in November 2016, alleged that former Wilton preschool paraprofessional Eric Von Kohorn sexually exploited the former Miller-Driscoll student in 2013-14. Boy Doe was enrolled in Miller-Driscoll Preschool Services during the time Von Kohorn worked there.
Von Kohorn was hired to work at the M-D preschool in 2007, and worked with preschool students until his arrest by Connecticut State Police on August 20, 2014. Von Kohorn was charged with first-degree possession of child pornography and promoting a minor in an obscene performance; he later pled guilty to reduced charge of illegal possession of child pornography in the second degree. He was sentenced in Oct. 2015 to six years in prison, suspended after two years served, and 10 years probation. He was released from jail in Oct. 2017.
In a statement issued by the attorneys when they originally filed suit on behalf of Boy Doe, the lawsuit alleged that, “Von Kohorn took the male student alone into a Miller-Driscoll school bathroom and photographed him in the bathroom stall while the child’s pants were down. The family is unaware what Von Kohorn did with the images or whether and where the images were distributed, which, according to the lawsuit, is a source of considerable distress for the family.”
The complaint further alleged that Von Kohorn was reassigned to Boy Doe’s preschool after school officials learned of complaints another family made about Von Kohorn sexually abusing their daughter. Boy Doe’s lawsuit states that it was after Von Kohorn began working in the boy’s classroom that he took the boy alone to the bathroom and photographed the child with his pants down.
The Boy Doe lawsuit was the second case filed against the school related to Von Kohorn. Slager and Kennedy also represented another family in a suit alleging Von Kohorn sexually molested the daughter, identified only as Girl Doe, in a school bathroom. That case was settled in May 2018–one year after asking for $5.25 million in similar offers of compromise.
Requests for comment were emailed late Tuesday evening to both the Board of Education and attorney Slager. GMW will update the story with any response.