Local

Lawsuit: Church knew about issues years before principal's rape conviction

A lawsuit filed in King County claims a church ignored years of warnings about a now convicted pedophile principal.

Douglas Allison taught at Mountain View Christian, part of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, until early last year when he pleaded guilty to touching and having sexual contact with two young girls.

Chris Davis' clients are suing because their 10-year-old daughter was the victim, along with another 10-year-old girl.

TRENDING NOW:

·        Survey: Millions of adults think chocolate milk comes from brown cows

·        World's largest rubber duck floats into Tacoma

·        Kshama Sawant calls out Steve Ballmer over income tax

·        7 Things You Didn't Know About the Harry Potter Book Series

DOWNLOAD OUR FREE NEWS APP

The lawsuit claims Mountain View Christian was warned about Allison being too affectionate with students more than six months prior to his arrest. The lawsuit also claims at least one student at another Seventh-day Adventist Church school in California, where Allison worked prior to moving to Washington, claimed Allison put his hands down her pants.

“Those complaints reached the board for the school down in California and we believe the church basically did nothing,” Davis said.

Davis said he is not sure if the church intentionally moved Allison to cover up the allegations.

However, he believes someone knew something.

“I have to think because he moved to a different church -sponsored school, the same church, that many in the church knew what was going on,” Davis said.

A spokeswoman for the Seventh-day Adventist Church said she had not seen the lawsuit and could not comment.