School District Insurer Adds $1.1M to Sex Abuse Case Settlement

A Michigan school district’s insurance carrier has agreed to pay $1.1 million to settle a lawsuit by a Detroit-area couple who were charged in a sex abuse case involving their autistic daughter before prosecutors dropped it in 2008.

The Detroit Free Press reports the company negotiated the payment before the lawsuit by Julian and Thal Wendrow of Oakland County’s West Bloomfield Township was scheduled for trial Oct. 8. The district admits no wrongdoing.

The Wendrows’ lawyer, Deborah Gordon, called the settlement involving Walled Lake Consolidated Schools “responsible.”

The settlement brings to $3.75 million the total for settlements. The remaining defendant is the Oakland County Prosecutor’s Office.

The criminal case was developed through a controversial way of communicating in which messages are typed on a keyboard with an adult’s help.