DONNA — Former Donna High School football coach David Evans can’t seem to shake the hazing scandal that cost him his job there more than two years ago.

On Monday, one of the team’s former players filed suit against him and the school district in federal court, claiming they fostered a culture of “deliberate indifference” that led to the attempted sexual assault of four younger players at the hands of older teammates.

The lawsuit, which also names suspended Superintendent Joe D. Gonzalez as a defendant, comes less than a month after Evans declared the 2005 fiasco behind him and returned to the sidelines as head coach of Valley View High School’s football team.

The former player and his mother, who is also named as a plaintiff in the case, declined comment Tuesday when reached at their Donna home.

It is The Monitor’s policy not to identify victims of sexual assault. The name of the former player’s mother has also been withheld to protect his identity.

“The administration has a duty to protect the students,” said Ronald Rodriguez, a Laredo-based attorney representing the former player and his mother. “These coaches failed my client and others in failing to protect them from sexual assault.”

The lawsuit does not set forth a specific dollar figure for the damages being sought, but it does list “punitive” damages as one of its objectives.

2004-05

Reports of the brutal attacks in the team’s locker room showers surfaced near the end of the 2004 season.

By March 2005, the freshman players had accused four upperclassmen of holding them down and trying to shove gloved fingers into their anuses.

All four upperclassmen — including the team’s former star quarterback, Derick Castillo — were later indicted on attempted sexual assault charges. Each has since pleaded guilty to lesser charges or arranged separate punishments with prosecutors.

By the end of the 2004-05 school year, the Donna school board had fired Evans, as well as assistant varsity football coach Alfredo Holguin Jr. and head freshman football coach Robert D. Gracia for allegedly interfering with the subsequent investigation.

Holguin and Gracia are also named in the former player’s lawsuit, along with Donna High School Principal Fernando Castillo and Assistant Principal Julio Cesar Avila.

Culture of indifference

Evans could not be reached to comment on the case, but he has previously maintained that he did not know about or condone any hazing among team members, and no knowledge on his part was ever proven.

“We’re in the process of reviewing the claims made in the lawsuit and are prepared to respond to them in court,” said his attorney, Augustin Rivera Jr., who is based in Corpus Christi.

But the former football player filing the suit now claims Evans and his co-defendants are guilty of more than ignorance.

According to his petition in the case, the suit’s defendants maintained policies and customs that encouraged hazing and failed to fully investigate complaints of abuse made by other students.

A damning report on the Donna school district athletics program released by the Texas Education Agency in 2005 seems to confirm many of these claims.

Under Evans’ command, numerous reports of “sexual exhibitionist behavior” and assaults were never reported to school authorities or law enforcement, the TEA document states.

“The children in our schools depend on school leaders to protect them,” said Rodriguez, the plaintiffs’ attorney.

“My clients feel like they were severely damaged by them instead.”

Phone calls to each of the other defendants in the case and the attorneys representing them were not returned Tuesday.

A hearing date has not been set for the case.

A previous version of this story misidentified Donna High School's assistant principal at the time of the hazing incident. The administrator being sued is Julio Cesar Avila, according to an updated version of the suit.

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Jeremy Roebuck covers courts, law enforcement and general assignments for The Monitor. You can reach him at (956) 683-4437.