Jury: Los Angeles Unified School District must pay $1.4 million in sex assault case

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A student on his way to school walks past a Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) school, in Los Angeles, California on Feb. 13, 2009.

Jurors say Los Angeles Unified School District officials must pay a special needs fourth-grader $1.4 million after she was repeatedly sexually assaulted by a male classmate in Chatsworth.

The Los Angeles Times reports Santa Monica jurors decided on the sum Tuesday night, following an eight-day trial that found poor program supervision at Superior Street Elementary was to blame.

The boy assaulted the girl behind a shed and tree in spring 2010, at a supervised after-school program.

Court records say one staffer supervised as many as 100 students, giving the 10-year-old boy opportunity to take the 9-year-old girl to locations on campus and force her to submit to and perform sex acts.

They were caught the fifth time after a teacher heard them.

The school district didn't immediately provide comment.