COLUMBUS, Ohio — Following an appeals court decision this week, the Ohio Court of Claims will again consider whether Ohio University is liable for its former police officer’s 2005 abuse of Washington County woman Alison Arocho, then 15. This time, the court may consider additional evidence.
“We’re looking forward to getting back in front of the court with this additional information and with the insight and direction from Tenth District (Court of Appeals),” said Mike Fradin, Arocho’s attorney.
Arocho argued at a 2022 trial that OU facilitated the sexual abuse she suffered at the hands of former OU Police Department officer Robert Andrew Parsons. Among other claims, Arocho argued that OU negligently supervised and retained Parsons as an employee after the university should have known Parsons was likely to engage in sexual misconduct with minors.
Although the 2022 trial in the Ohio Court of Claims ended in OU’s favor, the decision by the Ohio Tenth District Court of Appeals reverses the court’s decision on Arocho’s claims regarding OU’s negligent supervision and retention of Parsons.
The appeals court agreed with Arocho’s argument that the court of claims wrongly deprived Arocho of evidence that could have proved pivotal to those claims.
Arocho estimated at trial that Parsons raped her as many as 100 times from 2005 to 2006, including in his university cruiser and at least once on OU’s campus.
Arocho presented evidence at trial that Parsons’ employment as an officer made her feel she could not seek recourse against him. She further testified that he used his status as an officer to threaten her and her family into complying with his demands.
Parsons claimed he and Arocho had sex three times, without coercion, and never on campus or in his cruiser.
The appeals court decision reopens the question of OU’s liability and represents the second legal victory for Arocho in less than two months. In December, an Athens County jury ordered Parsons to pay Arocho over $768,000 in damages for the sexual abuse he committed in 2005.
“Critical details” missing
In 2001, Athens County Children Services investigated Parsons’ conduct. The investigation pertained to an allegation “similar” to those made against Parsons in 2005, according to a 2005 OU memo.
The memo, among the sparse evidence presented at trial regarding the 2001 incident, states that the 2001 complaint alleged Parsons “tried to initiate sexual relations with a juvenile female.”
OU was made aware of the investigation shortly after it occurred. Arocho argued at trial that OU should have conducted its own thorough investigation into Parsons thereafter, and that OU’s failure to do so facilitated her abuse by Parsons.
To support this claim, Arocho attempted during the course of trial preparation to subpoena ACCS records related to the 2001 incident. However, then-presiding Judge Patrick McGrath quashed Arocho’s subpoena for the records over concerns regarding confidentiality, following a request by Athens County Prosecutor Keller Blackburn, representing ACCS.
Because the ACCS case materials were not introduced in court, Parsons’s testimony was the only evidence on the specifics of the 2001 investigation. He said he reached over a minor passenger in his car to open her door, which the child viewed as a “pass,” or sexual advance.
Based on comments made by Ohio Court of Claims Judge Dale Crawford at trial, the appeals court concluded the “absence of critical details about the 2001 incident was the primary reason” Arocho didn’t convince the court that the sexual abuse she experienced “was foreseeable to a reasonable employer in OU’s position.”
Arocho “produced some proof that the 2001 investigation of Parsons involved similar conduct and the ACCS documents likely contain the relevant details,” the appeals court decision says.
As a result of the decision, the court of claims will now conduct an ‘in camera inspection’ of the 2001 investigation records. That allows a judge to review the records and determine what information to release to Arocho and OU. In this process, records could be redacted to protect confidential information.
The appeals court decision explains, “The Court of Claims in this case could have ordered ACCS to submit documents related to the investigation of the 2001 incident for in camera review with identifying information redacted, as the identity of the minor victim was not relevant to appellant’s case. Other identifying information could be further redacted by the court from any documents the court deemed discoverable following the in camera review.
“The significance of the documents to appellant’s case is the conduct alleged and the proof provided, not the identity of the victim or the names of individuals providing information to investigators. Under the circumstances of this case, the court was obligated to review the documents and to determine whether appellant’s need for the documents and the relevance of the documents to her claims outweighed any confidentiality concerns.”
Now, the court will have to do just that.
ACCS Public Information Officer Matt Starkey previously told the Independent the agency stands by the initial decision to quash the subpoena, because granting the subpoena “would have opened the agency up to further legal action regarding the confidentiality of records.”
Asked whether he believes turning over the records will now open the agency up to legal action, Starkey said the agency has “a process by which records can be requested” and follows a statutorily established process for responding to those requests. He declined to comment further.
OU’s arguments fail to convince
OU argued that because the ACCS investigation would not have been available to OU in 2001, the records aren’t important evidence in the case.
The appeals court, however, found that because OU did not conduct a “timely and thorough investigation of the facts underlying the 2001 allegations … the contents of the ACCS documents are the best contemporaneous evidence of the facts surrounding the 2001 incident.”
OU further argued that because no criminal proceedings or restraining orders followed the 2001 ACCS investigation, there is no evidence to suggest that any investigation by OU would have required OU to fire Parsons.
The appeals court also disagreed on this point.
“By quashing the subpoena without first conducting an in camera inspection, the Court of Claims essentially foreclosed appellant from discovering facts which may support a finding that a sexual assault on appellant was a foreseeable result of OU’s decision to retain Parsons in 2001,” the appeals court decision says.
Even if OU did err in retaining Parsons in 2001, though, OU argued it wouldn’t have mattered — because Parsons could have met and abused Arocho anyway.
The appeals court found, however, that this argument “cannot be resolved in a vacuum.” It is impossible to know what the ACCS document will reveal, and Arocho “produced evidence to support a finding that Parsons used his OU credentials to coerce appellant into submitting to his sexual advances,” the court found.
Fradin said the court’s findings in its decision are more than a simple reversal of the Ohio Court of Claims decision. “They also gave a good sort of map for the court and for us, in terms of what they’re looking for” to demonstrate Arocho’s negligent supervision and retention claims, Fradin said.
What’s next?
Now that the appeals court has ruled in Arocho’s favor, the court of claims will request and review the ACCS records in question.
Judge Dale Crawford, who ruled in favor of OU in November 2022, will consider OU’s liability in light of new evidence obtained through the ACCS records and the findings made by the appeals court.
“It could be another trial with the additional information,” said Mike Fradin, Arocho’s attorney. “Especially in terms of the negligent retention and supervision, the court — the appellate court, that is — had a lot of insight into those … and I think there’s a lot for Judge Crawford to consider based upon that opinion, if there is to be a second trial.”
A second trial is not the only possible outcome, however. Fradin also suggested that if and when ACCS records are released by the court, Arocho may motion for summary judgment. Or, OU could pursue a settlement agreement with Arocho.
Although Fradin said “Ohio University has not made any effort to resolve this case” since it was first filed in 2019, he said the appeals court decision may be a reason for them to consider such a resolution.
Carly Leatherwood, chief of staff in OU’s President’s Office, declined to comment for this story.
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