Suit over sexual assault, harassment of former student at NSHS moves forward

NORTH SMITHFIELD – A lawsuit filed by a former North Smithfield High School student seeking damages due to the assertion that school officials did not protect her from sexual assault and instead, allowed other students and teachers to bully and harass her, is moving forward in Rhode Island District Court.

Using the pseudonym “C.P.,” the victim of a 2017 assault is suing the school district; former Principal Timothy McGee; former Asst. Principal Steven Boss; and Supt. Michael St. Jean; along with two high school teachers.

At age 14, the lawsuit notes, the victim was assaulted by an older student in a storage closet at the Greenville Road school. Justin Rapoza, who was 18-years-old at the time, later pled guilty to third-degree sexual assault, and was sentenced to a five-year suspended term with probation and home confinement. He was ordered in Rhode Island Superior Court to have no contact with C.P., and to register as a sex offender.

Through her attorneys Joshua Carlin and Mary Welsh McBurney of Providence-based Hanson Curran LLP, C.P. notes that at the time of the incident, her attacker had already been implicated in a previous assault at the school, and faced disciplinary action, being banned from the football team, but was allowed to remain on school grounds without supervision.

The attacker had transferred to NSHS from another high school in February of 2017, and the suit notes he had a record of committing a sexual assault at his previous school. The North Smithfield Police Department reportedly investigated two additional sexual assault claims against him that May and July.

“No warning was provided by the school, McGee, St. Jean, or Boss to students or parents regarding the conduct, including the sexual assaults,” it notes.

C.P. was assaulted after school that November and according to the lawsuit, Boss confronted her without her parents present, and yelled at, interrogated and shamed her. The victim says Boss, who would later resign from his role as vice principal in 2023, threatened to show her parents a video of her emerging from the area where she was assaulted, implying the incident was her fault. Boss called in a social worker, and only then did McGee contact the victim’s parents, who immediately went to the school.

At the time, no report had been made to police or to the state Department of Children, Youth and Families as required by law, the complaint notes. And in the months that followed, other students and even members of the faculty outed, bullied, shamed, and ostracized the victim, it states.

C.P. eventually left the school and graduated from Woonsocket Area Career and Technical Center.

Through attorneys Marc DeSisto and Sarah Boucher of DeSisto Law, LLC, the defendants have denied the claims. In a response filed last August, the defendants pled immunity and state that the victim failed to bring action within the applicable limitations period.

The suit, first filed in April of 2024, is on track for a trial to take place in 2026, with a deadline for motions next July. The parties have filed for several extensions and are expected to complete 20 depositions related to the case.

Most recently, the plaintiffs filed stipulated facts on Tuesday, Sept. 16 outlining Rapoza’s disciplinary history, which allegedly includes more than a dozen school-related offenses, as well as three arrests by the North Smithfield Police Department.