Sacramento-area school district settles child sex abuse lawsuit for $6 million
Twin Rivers Unified School District reached a $6 million lawsuit settlement involving a former Del Paso Heights Elementary School teacher who was convicted of several counts of child sexual abuse earlier this year.
The civil case filed in Sacramento Superior Court in January 2023 claimed that teacher Kim Kenneth Wilson, 65, used his authority as head of the school’s audio-visual club to isolate the sixth-grade victim in a locked, windowless, soundproof room where the abuse took place during the 2014-15 school year. According to the complaint, Wilson also photographed the abuse.
The lawsuit alleged that Twin Rivers failed in its obligation to properly supervise Wilson, allowing his misconduct to go unchecked for several years. Attorney Lauren Cerri of Cerri, Boskovich & Allard, representing the plaintiff, condemned school administration for ignoring prior complaints made by yard duty supervisors years earlier that Wilson was spending time in his classroom alone with female students during lunch recesses.
“Sadly there’s a repeated pattern of schools putting their image and reputations over the safety of students, turning a blind eye to complaints and ignoring red flags,” Cerri said in an interview.
Another family is seeking damages from Wilson and Twin Rivers through a separate civil case filed in June 2023 which is still proceeding in court. This complaint alleges that the teacher began pulling the then-7-year-old student out of her class periods and recess under the guise of needing help with new camera equipment, after which he removed her clothing and took photos of her while sexually assaulting her on multiple occasions.
Twin Rivers did not return an immediate request for comment.
Preventing abuse in school
Both civil suits allege that Twin Rivers administrators were made aware of possible misconduct by Wilson, but that administrators failed to act and violated their duty of care.
The Twin Rivers Unified School District Police Department received a lewd conduct report about an incident involving Wilson, then a fifth-grade teacher, and a juvenile in 2019 and forwarded it to Sacramento police. The Sacramento Police Department received a report from a separate juvenile victim alleging that Wilson sexually assaulted her in 2014.
In addition to these reports, Wilson was the subject of multiple other complaints prior to his arrest, including two for racist remarks and other inappropriate behavior, including calling a Black student a “burnt cockroach,” teasing students for their weight and describing his history of dating Black women.
Cerri, who has spent her career representing victims of childhood sexual abuse, said the abuse could have been prevented by training school staff to recognize and report the signs of grooming: favoritism of particular students, favoritism for students of a certain gender or ethnicity, coming up with ways to spend time alone with students.
Both civil complaints note that Wilson was known to frequently hug female students on school grounds.
“If you prevent the grooming, you prevent the abuse,” she said.
Cerri believes that Wilson took advantage of this lack of supervision to continue conducting the abuse of her client.
“The fact that he was taking photographs or videos of what he was doing to this young woman shows that he clearly thought he could get away with that,” Cerri said. “Think about how brazen that is.”
Serving a criminal sentence
In February, Wilson pleaded guilty of nine counts of committing lewd acts upon a child in criminal court. The former teacher faced 36 counts in connection with lewd and lascivious acts on children under 14 that prosecutors said were videotaped as early as 2014. He is currently being held at Rio Consumnes Correctional Center in Elk Grove.
Under the plea agreement, Wilson faces 215 years to life in prison but could become eligible for release under the state’s Elder Parole Program. At the time the D.A.’s Office said, with time served, Wilson would be up to parole as early as 2042. His next court hearing is Aug. 22, where he will likely be sentenced.
The sexual assaults took place both on the school campus, where he taught for 23 years until his arrest, and at his Meadowview home.
During a search of his home in 2023, Sacramento police detectives found a cache of child-sized sex toys, VHS tapes and DVDs containing videos of Wilson sexually assaulting the children. The videos showed assaults spanning multiple years with numerous students, prosecutors said. Court documents, which listed multiple Does, placed the children’s ages between 6 and 12 years old.
This story was originally published August 13, 2025 at 10:51 AM.
