In July, a KIRO 7 Investigation reported that the Puyallup School District paid $1.5 million to settle claims a Kalles Junior High School Physical Education teacher molested a student for years back in the 1990s.
Now, three additional men say they too were molested by the same teacher, Tim Paulsen.
On Thursday, three new tort claims were filed, indicating the now-grown men’s plan to file civil lawsuits against the district in 60 days, each seeking $1.5 million.
The men’s lawyer, Julie Kays of the Connelly Law Offices in Tacoma, told KIRO 7, “A predictable pattern took place with each of these new clients. Three then-boys, now men, who have come forward to say ‘This happened to me.’”
Kays’ initial client, who received the $1.5 million settlement earlier this year and asked that his identity be hidden, told KIRO 7 during an on-camera interview that he has “several distinct memories of sexual abuse that took place on (Kalles) school grounds, in the weight room, at his (Paulsen’s) house, on school-sponsored trips.”
He said Paulsen began grooming him when he was in the seventh grade.
When he sued the Puyallup School District, it paid the $1.5 million settlement hours before the trial was scheduled to begin.
According to Kays, within a few days of the KIRO 7 Investigation that aired in July, “We had multiple victims come forward to say that they too were victimized by Tim Paulsen.”
All three now-grown men allege they were victims of similar behavior, by Paulsen, when they were also students at Kalles in the 1990s and Kays believes the District is responsible.
“The Puyallup School District knew as early as 1993 that Paulsen was a predator. They had teachers coming forward. They had outrageous behavior happening on the school campus as well as off the campus,” she said.
The man who spoke to KIRO 7 in July said Paulsen was his roommate on a school-sponsored trip to Washington DC. “I was allowed to stay in his hotel room and sleep in the same bed with him.”
When asked whether school employees knew he and Paulsen shared a room, he responded “I don’t know how they couldn’t. Other teachers did at the time.”
The new tort claims allege Paulsen also took the other then-boys on sleepover trips and wrote them inappropriate letters. “Paulsen is a predator, and used his position of trust as a teacher and coach for the Puyallup School District to prey upon vulnerable young boys,” the tort claims reveal.
According to court documents filed during Paulsen's 2014 divorce proceedings, he "admitted to sexually abusing" a boy "and gave court details of how and when the sexual abuse occurred."
"So, all of this was done out in the open so all of the alarm bells should have been ringing for any member of the Puyallup School District faculty,” Kays said on Thursday. “They knew as early as 1993 and we can prove it.”
An even earlier case was filed against the Puyallup School District in 2005, accusing Paulsen of inappropriate behavior with another boy during the same time period. That case settled for $110,000.
Paulsen is no longer teaching and had no comment about the new allegations when KIRO 7 phoned him on Thursday.
KIRO 7 reached out to the district spokesman for comment but did not receive one.
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