Tenisha Steen was a 16-year-old student at Valley High School in Santa Ana when she became pregnant after having sex with her sociology teacher.
Her daughter is now 38 years old.
Thanks to a 2019 California law that gives survivors of childhood sexual abuse a three-year window to sue, no matter when the alleged abuse occurred, Steen filed a lawsuit against Santa Ana Unified School District. Her attorneys said Tuesday that the lawsuit was recently settled for more than $1 million, though they declined to give an exact figure.
Steen, now 53, said she will “always have to live with the trauma of the sexual abuse” she endured as a child.
“I went to school expecting to be safe. Instead, I was robbed of my innocence by a predator that the school protected. The settlement is just one step in my long journey to heal,” Steen said in a news release.
A lawsuit filed last year describes how her teacher, Gary Satrappe, began grooming her for sexual abuse in 1983, when she was in 10th grade. What began as forceful unwanted hugs and kisses when they were alone in the classroom led to him taking her to a motel, giving her alcohol and having sex, according to court documents.
“Satrappe began routinely demanding that (Steen) meet him at various locations on and off the school grounds,” where the teacher “forcefully engaged” in sex at least 13 times, according to court documents.
Satrappe, who resigned from his teaching post in 1985, died in 2004. He was 60. He was never prosecuted for his sexual relationship with a minor.
A Santa Ana Unified spokesman declined Tuesday to comment on the case or settlement.
According to court documents, the school principal at the time learned what happened to Steen. But he did not take action against the teacher and he did not report their relationship to police.
After Steen had the baby, the principal and another school employee went to her home and threatened she “would go to jail” and “likely have her child taken away” if she said that Satrappe was the father, according to court documents.
“The principal of this school valued a reputation over safety and he and they made the wrong choice,” said attorney Mike Reck, of Los Angeles-based Jeff Anderson & Associates, which along with the Greenberg Gross firm of Costa Mesa represented Steen.
The principal cited in the lawsuit died in 2015.
As a teenager, Steen was told that “no one would believe her should she choose to speak out, in part because of her race, and because Satrappe was a well-respected teacher within the Santa Ana community.” Steen is black. Satrappe was white.
At first, Steen agreed to keep quiet. But she later filed a civil lawsuit against the teacher, resulting in a four-day trial in 1990 in which a jury awarded her $275,000.
At the time, the jury found that the teacher’s relationship with his student was “so vile, base, contemptible, miserable, wretched or loathsome that it would be looked down upon and despised by ordinary decent people.” One juror said: “He could have had a positive impact on this girl’s life, but he took advantage of her.”
After the assaults, Steen went through some hard years, Reck said. But today, he said, she has a career, a family that includes three more children, and is working on a book about her experiences to help other other survivors.
“She was able to bring a case under this window, which provides some healing, some accountability, and some financial stability to help make up for the path that he put her on,” said Reck, referring to a California law known as the California Child Victims Act.
Beginning on Jan. 1, 2020, the law – Assembly Bill 218 – permits lawsuits through the end of 2022 in childhood sexual assault cases that exceed the statute of limitations.
Other states that have had similar laws include New York and New Jersey. California also had a similar law in 2003 and some 1,000 lawsuits were filed, mostly against Catholic clergy.
Joelle Casteix, an advocate for sex abuse survivors, noted that the 2003 window applied only to private institutions and lasted one year. The new law applies to both private and public institutions and lasts for three years. Casteix said she expects claims in California will number in the thousands by the end of next year.
“There is nothing more powerful to stop the cycle of child sexual abuse than allowing survivors to use the court system to hold predators and institutions accountable,” said Casteix, who in the 1980s was abused by a former choir at Mater Dei High.
“The #metoo (movement) and public awareness about abuse and survivors have made it safer than ever for people to stand up and speak out.”
