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Lawsuit: Rampant Sexual Abuse Was Covered Up At Yeshiva University High School

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. (CBSNewYork/AP) -- Nineteen former students at Yeshiva University High School filed a lawsuit Monday, accusing the school of covering decades of sexual abuse at the school.

The $380 million, 148-page lawsuit was filed Monday in U.S. District Court in White Plains, the New York Daily News reported.

The alleged abuse occurred in the between 1969 and 1989, the newspaper reported. It was disclosed in The Jewish Daily Forward beginning in December.

Lawsuit: Rampant Sexual Abuse Was Covered Up At Yeshiva University High School

In the lawsuit, one alleged victim claimed administrators offered him a deaf ear when he said a Judaic studies teacher had sodomized him with a toothbrush, while others whose parents were Holocaust survivors were told by the principal not to tell their parents who had already suffered too much, the newspaper reported.

An attorney for the plaintiffs, Kevin Mulhearn, says the Upper Manhattan school allowed "known sexual predators to roam the school at will seeking other victims."

The lawsuit claimed administrators ignored complaints of sexual abuse because they feared it would damage fundraising efforts and hurt the school's reputation.

A Yeshiva University spokesman told the Daily News that officials could not comment on the case.

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