Now that courts are opening again, two lawsuits have been filed by two former students of the Salamanca City School District. The law suits have been filed in state Supreme Court in Cattaraugus County alleging a teacher sexually abused them. The students claims against the same teacher come ten years apart from one another. sexual abuse of two students by the same teacher almost 10 years apart.
The plaintiff remained anonymous and claimed that David Bemus, a now retired teacher at the Jefferson Street School of the Salamanca City School District, allegedly had sexual contact with a 10-year-old child in 1977 and 1978.
The allegations against the school district claim that the administration should have known that Bemus was allegedly unfit to work with children and conducted background c heck before hiring the teacher to work with children. The lawsuit alleges taht the school district was negligent for hiring Bemus when it should have been aware that Bemus allegedly posed a danger to children.
A second lawsuit against the Salamanca City School District has been filed which alleges Bemus sexually abused a youth who was between the ages of 9 and 14 from 1984 to 1989.
Earlier this week, the New York state Assembly passed a bill that extends the window of the Child Victims Act for another year. The revival window for previously time-barred cases due to the Statute of limitations to be brought should be extended because of the amount of time courts were closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In May, Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced that NY would extend the window for cases to be filed until Jan. 14, 2021.