A lawsuit filed against the Town of Wilton and the Wilton Board of Education by parents who said their daughter was molested by a pre-school paraprofessional in 2012, was withdrawn on Monday, May 21. The lawsuit was withdrawn after the parties reached a settlement.
The suit, Girl Doe PPA v. Wilton Board of Education Et Al, was filed in 2015, and alleged that Eric von Kohorn, a former paraprofessional at the Wilton Pre-School, sexually assaulted the then-4-year-old girl (identified only by the “Girl Doe” pseudonym) in 2012. The suit maintained that the school district failed to protect her and investigate properly when the parents notified them of their suspicions.
Von Kohorn was arrested in 2014 on separate charges–first-degree possession of child pornography and promoting a minor in an obscene performance. He pled guilty to reduced charges and was sentenced in October 2015 to six years in prison, suspended after two years, after pleading guilty to reduced child pornography possession charges. He was released in 2017.
The settlement of the lawsuit was confirmed in an email from Wilton’s first selectwoman, Lynne Vanderslice.
“The Town’s insurance carrier has chosen to settle the lawsuit. The Town is not contributing funds to the settlement. The paperwork has not been completed, therefore there is nothing available at this time,” she wrote.
In May 2017, the family filed public orders of compromise, offering to settle for $5.25 million–$500,000 for each parent and $4.25 million for Girl Doe. A March 2018 trial date had been set, and the parties continued to file court motions and requests until Feb. 22, 2018 when the plaintiffs’ lawyer, Paul Slager of Silver Golub & Teitell, filed a continuance asking to postpone the trial date until May, stating, “The parties agree they are very close to settlement and require an additional time to complete an agreement.”
Slager also filed Monday’s withdrawal document. He was unavailable for comment today.