Craig Fults now faces $20M suit
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Named along with Fults in the suit are Barfield Elementary principal Judy Goodwin and the Rutherford and DeKalb County boards of education.
Fults, 39, will face sentencing March 2 in Murfreesboro on 12 counts of sexual battery by an authority figure, seven counts of statutory rape and five counts of rape. He was convicted earlier this year on the charges pertaining to his sexual contact with a 16-year-old student. Fults was a teacher/soccer coach in the Rutherford County school system at the time he befriended the victim who was a student at another Murfreesboro school.
The lone victim said Fults performed oral sex on him on numerous occasions, with the incidents occurring at Barfield Elementary School, Barfield-Crescent Park and at the victim’s home. The student came forward with the allegations last year, claiming he remained silent because Fults threatened to make it public that the victim was a homosexual if he told anyone of the molestations.
In filing the civil claim against Fults and the others, the victim maintains Fults took advantage of the boy’s attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), in getting him to submit to his advances. The suit also maintains Fults assaulted the boy and invaded his privacy by performing oral sex on him 200 times over a two-year period.
In naming Goodwin to the suit, the victim says she failed to properly supervise the teacher on occasions where the boy was molested at school after school hours.
The DeKalb School System was named because officials there allegedly allowed Fults to continue teaching after 1999 when he allegedly used the school computer to visit more than 400 pornographic sites over a six-week time frame. DeKalb County reportedly failed to warn Rutherford County of Fults’ past and failed to do a background check.
In asking for the combined $20 million, the victim, who maintains he is heterosexual, says he will be subject to questions as to his sexual orientation in the future. He says he has, and will, continue to suffer mental anguish. The victim’s mother says she has suffered emotionally, financially and physically.
The civil case will be set for trial later.