Woman Wins $920,000 in Sex Lawsuit
A woman has been awarded $920,000 in a civil lawsuit in which she claims that her stepfather habitually molested her as a child by using alcohol and drugs to make her compliant.
The 25-year-old woman won the award in a case decided by Superior Court Judge Ronald Prager. After deliberating about an hour, Prager ruled against former Oceanside dentist David Evan Peterson, according to Andrea Leavitt, the woman’s lawyer.
“What happened to this woman was a complete tragedy,” Leavitt said. “Her stepfather undertook her sexual education from the time she was 5. By age 12, he had made her an alcoholic.” Peterson, 56, fired his lawyer, David Thompson, in the midst of the two-day court hearing and then cleared his bank accounts and fled, Leavitt said.
Peterson, who denied the allegations against him, acknowledged in a deposition presented at trial that he did have sex with his stepdaughter but said it happened only once, when she was 15, Leavitt said.
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