What happened to you at Savanna High School was not okay.

Gilbert Street, Anaheim. A history teacher who started in the district in September 1995 and coached football and baseball on the side. A senior who went to a school counselor about what he'd done in his classroom; a jury that acquitted him, 2004; and a district that then, says a complaint it later settled, moved him over to Katella High in or around 2008 and kept him on. Come the fall of 2022, three former Savanna students sued Anaheim Union High School District. One of them settled on February 14, 2025. $198,700. So if you were at Savanna in any of his years there, 1995 through 2008, this page is yours, and the questions below take a minute, maybe less.

WatchingSeptember 2026: of the three complaints former Savanna students filed against the district in Orange County Superior Court in late 2022, one settled on February 14, 2025 and the other two have no public outcome we can find; the teacher they name is listed on Katella High School's staff directory today. The district's own page carries the rest of its record. The questions below work now.

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6 questions. Your answers are private and go to one person.

Looking for the page about the whole district? Anaheim Union High School District survivors: Sycamore Junior High, Kennedy, Savanna, Katella and Fremont on one page, with the district's full record.

This applies to you no matter what

You never sued, even when three others did. The former student who settled in February 2025 settled her own claim and nobody else's. Her $198,700 settles nothing for you.
You told somebody. A counselor, a teacher, your mom went to the office. One Savanna senior did exactly that, and the complaint that settled says a teacher had already warned another girl away from him and did nothing more. Being ignored is the heart of the case, not a reason to stay quiet.
You were there after the trial. No lawsuit we have read describes 2004 to 2008 at Savanna, and we won't pretend one does. But the complaint that settled says the district kept him on that campus those four years anyway, and what it knew by then is exactly the question a civil case gets to ask.
He was acquitted. A jury found him not guilty of two misdemeanor counts in 2004, and this page says so every time it names him. The civil case is against the district, not him, and runs on what the district knew and did, not on a verdict.
You were never in his class. A different teacher, a coach, anyone on staff, any year: the same district, the same questions.
You're a parent, a sibling, a friend asking for someone who can't. Reach out anyway. And if what happened was on or after January 1, 2024? Then there's no deadline at all.

The Savanna High School record: the complaint, the trial, the transfer, the settlement, and when

None of what's below is ours. A former student's lawyers wrote most of it and a clerk in Santa Ana stamped it; the Los Angeles Times read the court files; the district's own staff directory supplies the last line. We link every entry. Where a sentence says a complaint alleges something, that is all it is: a claim in a filed lawsuit, not a finding. The teacher in it was tried once, on two misdemeanor counts, and a jury acquitted him. He has denied everything. This page says so each time it names him. The district's wider record, four campuses and two settlements, lives on its own page and is not retold here.

2000-01 and 2001-02 school years, as a 2022 complaint tells it

Krystal Slocum, fifteen, a sophomore at Savanna in the 2000-01 year. The district put her in David Sepe's history class. What her complaint alleges: that she and other girls ate lunch in his room and stayed into the evening, that it was 'well-known on campus' he had 'groupies,' that a teacher who read a story she'd written pulled her aside, told her to stay away from him because he was a 'bad guy,' and did nothing more. That in her junior year he made her his teaching assistant, kissed her in his classroom after school, and drove her to his apartment in Fullerton during last period, where, the complaint says, he sexually assaulted her. Allegations, every line. Police did ask her, later on, and she told them nothing had happened. A lie, her complaint says now, and one she told to protect him. Complaint (conformed copy, Orange County Superior Court).

2004, and December 2006

All of this entry is the Los Angeles Times' reading of the court records, published December 24, 2022. In those records there's a lawsuit he filed, against a former student and her mother: malicious prosecution and abuse of process, more than $300,000, and a line in his court papers that his 'reputation was ruined over a childish school girl infatuation.' The student was Krystyna Gomez. She'd been a senior when she went to a school counselor about him (kissed her and groped her in his classroom, was what she said), and the Anaheim city attorney had gone ahead and charged him: two misdemeanor counts of annoying or molesting a child under 18, which he denied, and which a jury, in 2004, acquitted him of. His own suit he dropped in December 2006. Gomez, ostracized, finished out her senior year somewhere else. And by 2008, the Times reported, he had transferred to a neighboring high school in the district. Los Angeles Times (via Yahoo News).

October 31, 2022

Slocum v. Anaheim Union High School District, case 30-2022-01289723-CU-PO-CJC, e-filed at 4:33 that afternoon in Orange County Superior Court. Negligence, and negligent supervision and retention, against the district and ten Does; the teacher is named throughout but is not a defendant. On the transfer, its own words: 'Despite all of the information learned during this process, on information and belief, Defendant AUHSD re-employed Sepe at Katella High School, in or around 2008. Instead of protecting their minor students, AUHSD simply moved Sepe to another school within the district.' It pleads that the district 'turned a blind eye,' and that it was filed under the three-year revival window, before December 31, 2022. Complaint, e-filing stamp with case number (Orange County Superior Court).

December 24, 2022

The Los Angeles Times put the three lawsuits together. Gomez, 37, the senior who had gone to the counselor. Slocum, 37. A third former student, unnamed, who alleges that as a fifteen-year-old sophomore she got phone calls from a 'secret admirer' who turned out, her complaint says, to be the teacher, and that he then touched her in class. All three filed in Orange County Superior Court against the district, alleging it 'turned a blind eye to his misconduct' and gave him 'access to a new pool of minor students' after Gomez came forward. The district's spokesman: it 'has not received any lawsuits and, consequently, has no comment.' The teacher didn't answer the Times' calls. He was teaching at Katella. Los Angeles Times (via Yahoo News).

February 14, 2025

The Slocum case settled, for $198,700; the notice of settlement of the entire case was filed on March 20, 2025. Before that the district had filed a general denial and pleaded, among other defenses, that no government claim had been presented and that the claims were too late. None of it was decided. One plaintiff, one payment, nothing found about what the district knew, and Winet Patrick defending for the district. Exlitem verdict and settlement report.

September 15, 2026 update

Katella High School's staff directory, on the district's own site, lists Sepe, David, Teacher, today. Twenty-two years after the acquittal, eighteen after the transfer the complaint describes. The Gomez complaint and the third one have no public outcome we can find, and 'we can find' means exactly that. We check the directory each time we update this page. Katella High School staff directory (AUHSD).

We checked this on September 15, 2026, and the newest thing in it is from September 15, 2026 update. When something new gets filed or decided, it goes in here within 72 hours, with the link.

Who can be held responsible in a Savanna High School lawsuit

The district. Not the school, which isn't something you can sue by itself, and not the teacher, or not mainly. All three 2022 suits named Anaheim Union High School District: the public body that hired him in 1995, ran Savanna, was told by one of its own students what he'd done, saw him tried, and then, the settled complaint alleges, moved him to Katella and kept him. That's the theory, in plain words. A teacher answers for what he did; a district that knew and did that anyway answers for every student he reached afterward. No court has found that the district knew anything. It settled one case without that question ever being answered.

Anaheim Union is a public entity, and that changes three things a lawyer will walk you through. You don't file a government claim with the district first, whichever year it was; a childhood claim goes straight to court, and the district's argument in the Slocum case that a claim was required was never ruled on. There are no punitive damages against a school district in California, ever; that's Government Code 818, and we'd rather tell you now. And there is no cap on what a jury can award for what was actually done to you.

The district has a page of its own, /anaheim-union-survivors, with the record from four campuses: Sycamore Junior High, Kennedy High in La Palma, Fremont Junior High, and Savanna. If your years were at one of those, or at Katella, or at any other Anaheim Union school, that's your page. If they were at Savanna, start here. Same defendant, same questions, same survivors on the phone.

Your deadline: the California statute of limitations for childhood sexual abuse at a public high school

Until you turn 40, or five years from the day you understood what it did to you, whichever is later. That's California's rule for anyone abused as a minor before 2024, Code of Civil Procedure section 340.11, and it's why we ask whether you were born in 1987 or later. If you were, the door is open on age alone. Run the arithmetic for Savanna. A freshman in fall 2001? Born around 1987. Everyone on that campus from then until the teacher left in 2008 is inside on age, and stays inside for years yet. A sophomore in 2006, born in 1990, has until 2030.

Because the district is a public body there's one more rule, and here it helps you. You do not file a government claim first; Government Code 905(m) and section 340.11(s) take that step off the table, whatever year it was. The harder truth is for the women who were there when the record begins. Born in 1985 or 1986, forty has come or comes this year, and the revival window the three plaintiffs used closed on December 31, 2022. What's left after 40 is the discovery rule plus a showing that the district knew or should have known, and a lawyer has to look at your facts before anyone promises anything. We won't. Say your birth year on the call and you'll get a straight answer.

And if it happened on or after January 1, 2024, there is no deadline at all; that's section 340.1. Plainly, then: at Savanna any time from about 2001 on, you almost certainly still have time. What doesn't keep is everything else. Which teacher warned you. Which counselor you told. Who else ate lunch in that room. That's the part worth one call now.

Your situation still qualifies even if

You never told a soul. One senior did, back then, and was ostracized for it and finished high school somewhere else. Nobody would blame you for watching that and staying quiet.
You liked him. Read the complaint and you get a teacher whose room was where the girls ate lunch, who did Batman for Halloween with them as the Batgirls, who told a sixteen-year-old how mature she was. It's all in the record. And that, the complaint says, is how it worked.
Police asked you back then and you said nothing happened. The settled complaint says exactly that about its plaintiff, and she settled anyway. A police interview isn't a claim, and a denial at sixteen isn't held against you now.
He was acquitted. A jury did that in 2004, on two misdemeanor counts, in a criminal case. The civil case is against the district and asks a different question: what did it know, and what did it do.
You figure the one who settled got everyone's share. She got hers. $198,700, one plaintiff, February 2025. The other two cases had no public outcome when we wrote this.
You live somewhere else now. Nevada, Arizona, anywhere. Half the Savanna class of whatever-year does, and the firm we work with handles California cases wherever you are.

Schools covered

One school: Savanna High School, 301 North Gilbert Street, Anaheim, California 92801, grades nine through twelve, about 1,466 students these days, an Anaheim Union school then and now. The classroom, the lunch hour, after school, a ride off campus in a teacher's car, anything that ran under Savanna's name. For the teacher in the record that means 1995 to 2008. For anyone else, any year. Katella, where the complaint says the district sent him, gets a page of its own, /katella-high-school-survivors, which says plainly that no complaint alleges anything happened there. Every other Anaheim Union campus (Sycamore, Kennedy, Loara, Magnolia, Cypress, all of them) lives on the district's page, /anaheim-union-survivors. Same defendant, same questions. Answer them and say where.

Questions people are asking

Can I sue Anaheim Union High School District for what happened at Savanna?

Three former students did just that, late 2022, and rather than take one of them in front of a jury the district settled, February 2025. Whether you can depends mostly on when you were born, which is what the questions above sort out. Born in 1987 or later, the honest answer is yes, very likely. Born earlier, a lawyer has to look at the discovery rule and what the district knew.

Did the school district know about the teacher before the lawsuits?

That is what the complaints allege, and the record above lays out why. A teacher who warned a student away, the settled complaint says. A senior's report to a counselor. An arrest and a trial. Then, in or around 2008, a transfer to Katella instead of a dismissal. No court has found the district knew; it settled one case without deciding that.

Was the teacher ever convicted of anything?

No. He was charged, by the Anaheim city attorney, on two misdemeanor counts (the record above quotes them), he denied it, and in 2004 a jury acquitted him. Never convicted of anything, and this page doesn't say otherwise anywhere on it. The lawsuits are against the district, and what they allege is about what the district knew and did.

Do I have to file a claim with the district first, before suing?

No. California removed that step for childhood sexual abuse claims against public entities, and since 2020 the year the abuse happened makes no difference to it. The district raised the point in the Slocum case; it was never decided, and the case settled.

How much does a sexual abuse lawyer cost?

Here, nothing. Every case is on contingency, so the lawyer is paid only out of what is recovered, and if nothing is recovered you owe nothing, not for the first call and not for the case review either.

Who sees your form

Kerim Eravci · Survivor Advocate · Not a lawyer

I was a victim, and I waited. Not because I didn't know what happened to me (I knew every day), but because I'd decided it was over, mine to carry, nobody's business. When I finally went looking for a lawyer, the answer came back in two words I'd never thought about: statute of limitations. My time had run out while I was busy getting through it.

What that has cost me since is a long story, and I'll tell you the whole thing in private, if you want it. The short version is the reason my name is on this page: I'm here to help people do what I wish I'd done, which is find out where you stand while the door's still open.

I'm not a lawyer. I read what you send, I call you once, on your terms, and nothing gets filed unless you say so. Ask sooner than I did.

Kerim Eravci is not an attorney. He's a survivor.

What happens next. Three steps, nothing more until you say so.

You answer 6 questions. Nothing is filed. Nothing starts.
A survivor calls you, once. Not a robot, not a call center. Someone who has been where you are.
You decide. You find out your options. If you want to stop there, you stop there.

How this works

ME2 Survivors Alliance protects the heart. Licensed California attorneys do the legal work. We are not lawyers and we don't pretend to be.

You never pay a dollar

Every case is on contingency. There is no charge for the call, the review, or the case. The firm is paid only out of a recovery, and if there is no recovery you owe nothing.