SAINT LOUIS – A former student at Saint Louis University (SLU) recently filed a federal lawsuit seeking damages from the school and another student claiming she suffered months of emotional,physical and sexual abuse.
In her suit filed Nov. 18 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri, Madeline Jamrozek said she was a student athlete living on campus during the 2016-17 school year when the incidents occurred involving another student, Colten Bonk, who was also living on campus. Bonk was identified in the complaint as a resident of Texas and/or the Missouri Department of Corrections.
Jamrozek claims the university knew of the abuse but failed to act.
“In the fall of 2016 a SLU-employed on-campus resident assistant brought the abuse to the attention of SLU in a detailed and desperately-alarming lengthy report of abuse, violations of policies and violations of visiting restrictions," the suit said. "SLU did nothing to intervene, discipline Bonk or protect plaintiff.”
“SLU public safety responded to physical abuse of plaintiff but apparently filed no reports of the incident and again SLU did nothing to intervene, discipline Bonk or protect plaintiff,” the filing said.
The suit claims the incidents involved “emotional, physical and sexual abuse and which was severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive.”
The filing claimed there was one “additional episode of extremely alarming behavior by Bonk,” which the university also failed to respond to. “On May 13, 2017, after months of abuse and harassment – that was known to SLU and to which SLU showed deliberate indifference – Bonk brutally assaulted, beat, raped and sodomized plaintiff in her on-campus housing room at SLU,” the court filing said.
“Defendant SLU has engaged in a custom and practice of not documenting public safety calls, suppressing sexual assault/relationship violence and violence grievances, violating Title IX and Equal Protection of Laws, failing to provide reasonable response to abuse and harassment, failing to investigate and correct known harassment, failing to provide appropriate student accommodations, and/or failing to adequately discipline Bonk and other such abusive and harassing students thereby encouraging a culture of sexual violence and creating a hostile educational environment,” the court filing said.
The suit, which requests a jury trial, seeks damages for several counts including assault, battery, infliction of emotional distress, false imprisonment and negligence and violation of Title IX.