School District Ignored Past Complaints About Teacher, Lawsuit Alleges

Complaints about Woodside Elementary School teacher Joseph Andrew Martin were brushed off by the Mount Diablo Unified School District, according to a civil lawsuit filed Monday.

The complaints were made years before police started investigating Martin for child molestation, the Contra Costa Times reports, but attorney Daniel Horowitz says they "were largely ignored."

Martin, 45, was arrested at his Martinez home on June 27 and charged with 91 felony counts alleging he molested 11 former students between 2006 and April 2013. He pleaded not guilty to the charges in a courtroom last week and remains jailed in lieu of $10 million bail.

Martin has worked for the school district since 1991. Concord police said most of the incidents occurred on campus.

Horowitz is representing an unnamed minor who is not among those Martin is accused of molesting but alleges that the teacher subjected him to back rubs and other physical attention, which Horowitz says was part of a "grooming" process for molestation. The child's parents reported their concerns to Woodside's principal during the 2009-2010 school year, the lawsuit alleges, but were told that "Martin just had a different style of teaching and that the children achieved very high standardized test scores."