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Parents file lawsuit over 'sexting' suicide

Reported By Corey McConnell - bio | email
Posted by Trina Edwards - email

CINCINNATI, OH (FOX19) - The parents of Jessica Logan, an 18-year-old who committed suicide after nude pictures of herself were distributed, have filed a lawsuit.

Albert and Cynthia Logan, of Blue Ash, filed the lawsuit Friday in Hamilton County Pleas Court naming themselves and the estate of Jessica Logan as plaintiffs. Several defendants are named in the lawsuit, including the City of Montgomery, Sycamore High School, the resource officer at Sycamore High School, and several of Jessica's classmates.

The lawsuit says that Jessica Logan went on a spring break trip her senior year of high school in 2008 with two of the defendants and all three of them took nude photos of themselves with their cell phones. Jessica sent hers to another teen boy, who then sent the photos to four other girls named in the lawsuit. The photos then circulated through four schools - Loveland High School, Cincinnati Hills Christian Academy, Moeller High School and Sycamore High School.

When Jessica learned the photos were circulating, she and a friend went to the school resource officer, Paul Payne.

Payne wrote the complaint on a police report, but told Jessica there was no law to protect her since she was 18 years old. He offered to go to Loveland High School and speak with a defendant about deleting the photo.

The lawsuit states the defendant and her friends, "came back with a vengeance and continuously harassed, taunted and persecuted our daughter with intentional infliction of emotional distress."

The lawsuit blames the Montgomery Police Department for failing to press charges against the defendants for "disseminating and pandering pornographic matter." The lawsuit blames Sycamore High School for knowing about the situation, yet, "did not stop the hazing, bullying, taunting and harassment of our daughter."

According to the lawsuit, the photos were taken at the end of March. Jessica Logan committed suicide on July 3.

The lawsuit claims several causes of action, including wrongful death, negligence, and dissemination of private material.

"The three months of dissemination, harassment, hazing, intentional infliction of emotional distress, defamation of character, negligence and the breach of privacy and civil rights, we claim wrongful death," says the lawsuit.

The Logans expect a judge to be assigned to the case on Wednesday.

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