‘This is so bad’: Walnut Creek performing art school sued over alleged rapist employee

WALNUT CREEK — A girl who was allegedly raped by the climate and culture supervisor at the Contra Costa School of the Performing Arts has filed a suit accusing administrators there of failing to act as employees and parents attempted to report his “grooming behaviors.”

The suit, filed in superior court by “Jane Doe” and her family, names the now-defunct Walnut Creek charter school and the former employee, Gerard Flaherty, as defendants. It alleges Flaherty “used his position of trust and authority to gain access to her, groom her for his sexual advances, rape/sexually assault, and impregnate her on school grounds in his office on campus.” But before all this, a mother at the school brought concerns to Executive Director Catherine Foster that Flaherty had been looking “inappropriately” at