FORMER ROANE TEACHER SUED FOR $18 MILLION

(06/03/2005)

A former Roane County instructor who got into trouble in that county in 1993, is now the object of an $18 million lawsuit filed in Kanawha County. The parents of a former Sissonville High School student say piano instructor and detention supervisor Rodney Newhouse has sexually harassed her, alleging the emotional distress caused her to miss out on most of her senior year. The defendants are Rodney Newhouse, Sissonville High Principal Calvin McKinney, the Kanawha County Board of Education, the state Board of Education and the Roane County Board of Education, where Newhouse worked previously. Loretta and Brian Baldwin allege that the school principal and the school boards were negligent in not protecting their daughter. The Baldwins say Newhouse made lewd comments and touched her inappropriately last September. Newhouse was charged with four counts of third-degree sexual abuse in Roane County in 1993, but three were dismissed and he was acquitted of the fourth. Officials with the Roane County school system and the state declined to comment on the lawsuit.

Hur Herald ®from Sunny Cal The information on these pages, to the extent the law allows, remains the exclusive property of Bob Weaver and Dianne Weaver The Hur Herald. All information may be freely used but must not be sold or used in any type of commercial endeavor, or used on any web site without the express permission of the owners ©Bob and Dianne Weaver, The Hur Herald, 1999, 2000, 2001