Hudson Valley Special Needs Student Wins $28 Million in Rape Case

A Hudson Valley special needs student won the largest amount of money ever awarded by a jury in a sexual and physical assault case in New York history.

Download the Hudson Valley Post App

In December 2011, the victim identified as Chantay M, then 13, said a fellow Mount Vernon student sexually assaulted her at his home while giving her a ride home from school. A witnessed testified that the sexual assault occurred because the victim wasn't on a bus for special-education students.

Chantay was a special-education student at Mount Vernon and her cognitive abilities were at a first-grade level at the time of the sexual assault, officials say.

In March of 2012, she was beaten in a locker room by three female students. The attack caused her to suffer a traumatic brain injury and a concussion.

Chantay's relatives asked the school to keep a close watch of her, because she was involved in an off-campus incident with the three girls involved in the locker room attack a few days before the attack, according to Chanty's attorney's.

Following a three-week trial in Westchester County Court, a jury found the Mount Vernon school district was negligent for the sexual assault and locker room beating, according to the New York Law Journal.

&nbsp

The jury found that the school district was 99 % at fault and one of the three students involved in the locker room beating was 1% at fault.

The jury awarded Chatay $28 million, $20 million for future pain and suffering and $8 million for past pain.

The award is the biggest ever given by a jury in a sexual and physical assault case in New York history, according to the victim's lawyer, Jordan Merson of Merson Law.