District responds to civil lawsuit over 2018 assault

The School District of Rhinelander has filed a written response to a civil lawsuit filed by a local family related to an assault in a local elementary school in November 2018.

In a complaint filed March 4, the family alleged the district was negligent in allowing Stavros Iliopoulos to continue to work as a janitor at Northwoods Community Elementary School (NCES) despite knowledge of “incidents of sexual harassment” attributed to him. 

The school district and its contractor Victory Janitorial were also “negligent in hiring, training, instructing, monitoring and supervising” Iliopoulos and said negligence “was a substantial factor and proximate cause” of the injuries and damages they suffered, the complaint states.

The family’s minor child has suffered “severe and permanent injury” that interfere with normal activities and the ability to enjoy life while the parents allege they incurred medical expenses and lost wages as well as “a loss of society and companionship” of their child, according to the complaint. 

Iliopoulos, 71, is also a defendant in the civil suit. According to the complaint, he is accused of intentionally inflicting “offensive bodily contact” upon the child plaintiff.

Over the last several years, two separate local juries heard evidence related to the child’s claim that Iliopoulos intercepted her as she was leaving a school restroom, forced her into a janitor’s closet and kissed her upper chest and stomach area. Both juries ultimately convicted him of child enticement, false imprisonment and first-degree sexual assault, all felonies. 

A second trial was held after Oneida County circuit judge Mike Bloom found Iliopoulos had not received effective assistance of counsel during the first proceeding. 

The initial guilty verdicts, handed down in September of 2019, were overturned after appellate counsel successfully argued Iliopoulos’s trial attorney was deficient in failing to properly challenge key DNA evidence, among other errors.

The second trial, held in December 2022, featured a more focused discussion regarding the type, quality, quantity and location of the DNA evidence collected from the child’s body, however the verdict was the same. In February 2023, Bloom ordered Iliopoulos to serve a total of 14 years in prison to be followed by 16 years extended supervision. 

In a four-page pleading filed on April 19, attorneys for the school district admit that Iliopoulos was working as a janitor at NCES on the day the plaintiffs’ minor child reported an assault took place but deny having “information or knowledge sufficient to form a belief as to the truth of the remaining allegations...”

In its answer, the district also denies its “agents, servants or employees” were negligent.

Under affirmative defenses, the district’s answer states that “plaintiffs’ injuries and/or damages were proximately caused by persons other than this Defendant over whom this Defendant had no responsibility or control” and “plaintiffs’ injuries and/or damages may be the result of intervening and/or superseding causes and/or events.”

According to court records, Iliopoulos filed his own answer to the complaint on April 8.

In his filing, Iliopoulos references his criminal attorney’s pretrial motion seeking dismissal of the criminal charges due to an alleged failure to preserve evidence.

In the motion, which Bloom ultimately denied, public defender Kate Frigo Drury argued the defense was “provided with unsophisticated copies” of video footage she characterized as the “lynchpin” of the case.

“Rather than downloading the footage and providing the same to undersigned counsel, it appears that investigators either used screen capturing technology or their body camera to film a computer screen displaying the actual footage,” the motion, filed in October 2022, states. “These copies are flawed because they are conflicting and incomplete. Information relevant to this case and exculpatory to Mr. Iliopoulos’s case was not preserved.”

Portions of Iliopoulos’s response are handwritten and there’s no indication as to whether he has obtained an attorney to represent him or plans to represent himself.

Heather Schaefer may be reached at [email protected].