$3 Million Settlement for Student Abused by Rowan County Coach, Believed Kentucky's Largest of Its Kind
Won by Minner Vines Injury Lawyers, PLLC (co-counsel) and Sam Aguiar Injury Lawyers (co-counsel).
The Rowan County Board of Education agreed to a $3 million settlement in February 2026 after a coach repeatedly abused a student while administrators ignored at least eight separate reports of the conduct, in what attorneys described as the largest single-victim school sexual abuse settlement in Kentucky history.
What happened
Andrew Zaheri was a teacher and assistant boys basketball coach at Rowan County Senior High School when he began grooming a female student during her freshman year, when she was 14. The abuse escalated into repeated rape and sexual abuse and continued through her senior year. Zaheri was convicted in 2024 on federal child pornography production charges and state charges including rape and sodomy, and was sentenced to 22 years in federal prison.
The victim, identified in court filings as Jane Doe, sued the Rowan County Board of Education, former Superintendent John Maxey, and former Principal Jordan Mann in May 2023. Court documents alleged that Mann received at least eight separate reports of the abuse between late September and December 2022 but took no meaningful action to protect the student. Discovery in the case turned up messages between Mann and Zaheri that prompted student walkouts at the school in 2025.
Jon Hollan of Sam Aguiar Injury Lawyers represented the plaintiff, alongside co-counsel Jonathan Fannin of Minner Vines Injury Lawyers. Hollan argued the school district's institutional failure, not just Zaheri's individual conduct, was at the center of the case. After nearly three years of litigation, the parties reached a $3 million settlement announced February 16, 2026. The settlement is not an admission of liability by the district.
Rowan Circuit Court rejected a non-disparagement clause the district sought to include, ruling the victim retained her First Amendment rights to speak about the case. The victim stated she was not personally taking any of the settlement money at the time of announcement, setting it aside for future use.
Attorney Hollan said after the resolution: "If you're going to abuse children in Kentucky, if your school system is going to allow sexual abuse to happen in Kentucky, the price went up on these cases because of this case." The district agreed to mandatory annual staff training on abuse prevention as part of the resolution.
The $3 million figure is believed to be the largest settlement in Kentucky history for sexual abuse of a single victim within a school system. Zaheri remains in federal prison.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
- 1.WKYT: Rowan County Schools settles sexual abuse lawsuit, largest settlement of its kind (Feb. 16, 2026)·Archived copy
- 2.WEKU: Rowan County Board of Education settles sex abuse lawsuit for $3 million (Feb. 17, 2026)·Archived copy
- 3.Yahoo News/AP: Kentucky school district settles sexual abuse lawsuit for $3 million (Feb. 2026)·Archived copy
- 4.Yahoo News: Rowan County Schools settles with victim of former coach Andrew Zaheri convicted of rape (Feb. 2026)·Archived copy
- 5.Court record (JuryVerdicts.net): Jane Doe v. Rowan County Board of Education complaint, Rowan Circuit Court No. 23-CI-90159·Archived copy
More proven verdicts from Sam Aguiar Injury Lawyers
All Sam Aguiar Injury Lawyers proven verdicts →Ben Crump, alongside Louisville co-counsel Sam Aguiar and Lonita Baker, settled the wrongful-death lawsuit brought by Breonna Taylor's mother against the City of Louisville for $12 million, the largest police-misconduct payout in the city's history, paired with a package of policing reforms the family made a non-negotiable condition of the deal.
Jackson County, Indiana agreed to pay $5.6 million to the family of Ta'Neasha Chappell, a 23-year-old Louisville mother who died in jail custody in July 2021 after nearly 20 hours of ignored medical pleas.
Louisville Metro Government paid $1.25 million to the family of Darnell Wicker, a 57-year-old man shot 14 times by LMPD officers during a 2016 domestic-disturbance call in which he was holding a tree saw.
Jonathan Hollan of Sam Aguiar Injury Lawyers won a $728,218 jury verdict for a plaintiff whose cargo van was struck when a tractor-trailer jackknifed during rush-hour traffic on Louisville's Gene Snyder Freeway.
Related premises liability verdicts
Anapol Weiss shareholder Kristen Gibbons Feden helped secure $1.6 billion in default verdicts for 104 women sexually abused as children by former Long Island pediatrician Stuart Copperman, one of the largest cumulative civil awards against a single individual in U.S. history.
A Dallas jury awarded $1.1 billion against a trust fund heir who beat a 2-year-old into a permanent vegetative state in 2021, a verdict the firm calls the largest child-assault award in U.S. history.
A Clayton County jury awarded $1 billion to a woman who was raped at age 14 by an armed security guard her employer hired without verifying he was licensed to carry a weapon.
Joseph Bruno and Bruno & Bruno served as lead plaintiffs' counsel in a landmark class action brought by more than 8,000 Gentilly residents exposed to a butadiene tank-car fire in 1987, securing a jury verdict that included $2.5 billion in punitive damages against CSX Transportation alone, later reduced to $850 million on appeal and affirmed by Louisiana's Fourth Circuit.