CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) - Two Mingo County boys face criminal charges stemming from an investigation of sexual abuse allegations.
Mingo County prosecutors have filed juvenile petitions against the boys, Prosecuting Attorney Teresa Maynard told media outlets. She declined to provide specifics because the suspects are juveniles.
Earlier this month, West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey filed a lawsuit alleging officials at Burch Middle School brushed aside allegations that the boys had sexually abused female classmates.
The lawsuit filed in Mingo County Circuit Court also alleges that school officials interfered with a West Virginia State Police investigation of the allegations.
Maynard said no adults have been charged but that the criminal investigation is continuing.
Morrisey also claims in the lawsuit that administrators at the school retaliated against the girls for reporting the allegations. It says the abuses occurred during the 2012-13 school year and have continued to the present.
Defendants include the principal, vice principal, guidance counselor and a coach, the boys and their parents, the Mingo County School Board and superintendent. Names of the boys and their parents were not released. The lawsuit asks the court to prevent further abuse and retaliation and bar defendants from interfering with the police investigation.
The lawsuit comes less than a year after a former Mingo County judge, prosecutor, magistrate and county commissioner pleaded guilty to charges stemming from a federal corruption probe. The county also was rocked in 2013 by the slaying of its sheriff.
The lawsuit says the girls relayed sexual abuse allegations to a guidance counselor in the spring 2012-13 school year - non-consensual fondling, groping and molestation, “oftentimes forcible in nature.”
The victims identified the same two male seventh graders, both of whom are related to Mingo County school system employees.
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