Former Stadium High student sexually molested by guard gets $500,000 settlement

By Alexis Krell | The News Tribune

A former Stadium High School pupil will receive $500,000 to settle a lawsuit against Tacoma Public Schools regarding a security guard who had sex with her and other students.

The student, identified in court records as C.J., settled the suit earlier this month, according to documents given to The News Tribune by her attorney, Lincoln Beauregard, on condition that her full name not be used.

The security guard, Donte D. Lipscomb, admitted to having sex with three girls, including C.J., at the school between 2010 and 2012. He was sentenced to four years in prison after he pleaded guilty to three counts of first-degree sexual misconduct in 2013.

The lawsuit, filed in May, said the school district was negligent in its hiring, supervision and retention of Lipscomb. It was negligent of the district to transfer him to Stadium after disciplinary trouble at another school, the lawsuit contended.

In 2009, Lipscomb worked at Oakland High School, the school district’s alternative high school.

He was suspended without pay for three days after he gave a girl a ride home without getting permission from her parents or reporting the ride to the district, according to the lawsuit.

“The solution to keeping girls safe is not to move him to a bigger high school,” Beauregard said.

He noted the transfer happened under the previous superintendent.

Tacoma Public Schools attorney Shannon McMinimee said the transfer to Stadium meant Lipscomb had more administrators and worked with other guards. He had been the only guard at Oakland, which had only one administrator.

“There was no allegation then or now that he engaged in any form of sexual misconduct while at Oakland,” McMininee said. “… It was still a circumstance that was unfortunate, but not one that was reasonably foreseeable.”

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