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Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Back issues
Courthouse News Service Courthouse News Service

Girl Says Cop Groomed Her for Sex

NEWARK (CN) - A Hanover Township police officer preyed upon a girl's "emotional frailty" from her parents divorce to lure her into having sex, the teen-ager claims in Federal Court. She says their repeated bouts of sex ended when the cop's wife found out.

Jane Doe says John Schauder met her while he was on duty and she was 17 and hanging out with friends. She says she often sat in Schauder's squad car and talked about her "feelings of abandonment" from her parents' divorce. The talking led to kissing, hugging and fondling in Schauder's squad car, in "secluded, wooded locations," according to the complaint.

She claims Schauder planned a "sexual rendezvous" when she turned 18, and while his wife and children were away, he invited her to his house for the weekend to drink alcohol and have sex.

After the "sexual rendezvous," Doe says, she met him repeatedly at his home, at her parents' home and at other "secluded locations," while he was on- and off-duty, and they had sex. The relationship ended, she says, when Schauder's wife found out about it.

Doe claims that defendants Hanover Police Department, Chief of Police Stephen Gallagher and other officers were aware of Schauder's "sexual misconduct" and failed to report it. Schauder's relationship with her was "open, visible and notorious" and he even bragged about it to other police officers, she says.

Doe seeks punitive damages for civil rights violations. She is represented by Robert Varady with LaCorte Bundy of Union, N.J.

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