Family of New Bedford student sues school over alleged abuse

Local News

Jacob Pothier, 18, was killed in a crash in 2024. Former Greater New Bedford Regional Vocational Technical High School employee Kathleen Martins, 44 at the time, was also in the car.

Jennifer Cullen

The family of a New Bedford high school senior who was killed in a car crash involving a former school employee filed a wrongful death suit in federal court against the school district for $10 million.

Jacob Pothier, 18, was a student athlete at Greater New Bedford Regional Vocational Technical High School. He died on impact in a single-car crash Jan. 5, 2024 a few weeks after his birthday, according to a lawsuit filed by his family in federal court.

“Jacob was an awesome kid,” said his aunt Jen Cullen, who is also the representative of his estate in court. “We’re both very stubborn people and would often butt heads, but then have these awesome heart to heart conversations, and we just miss him terribly.”

Kathleen Martins, who was 44 at the time of the crash, owned the car that crashed into a corner of Padanaram Bridge in Dartmouth on Jan. 5, according to the suit. She survived the crash after sustaining serious injuries.

Martins and Pothier, a football player, were engaged in an inappropriate sexual relationship that lasted for years, according to the lawsuit, starting when Pothier was 15 and Martins was 42. They met in his freshmen year when she worked as a security guard at GNB Voc-Tech.

The lawsuit names the Greater New Bedford Regional Vocational Technical School District as well as multiple individual administrators, including Superintendent Michael Watson, as defendants. Martins is also named as a defendant as a former employee of the high school.

The lawsuit alleges that Martins groomed, sexually abused, stalked, and sexually harassed Pothier throughout the relationship. In exchange for sex, Martins would allegedly give him alcohol, marijuana, clothing, jewelry, food, and money. She would also regularly take him out of class and give him a ride after school, the suit said. They would allegedly communicate through social media.

Martins also wore his jersey number to at least one football game and hosted him at her hotel room when he was at a football tournament in New Jersey, the lawsuit alleges. The lawsuit posits that a New Bedford police officer found the pair in a cemetery in Martins’s car and that the high school’s resource officer should’ve known about the relationship.

The lawsuit claims that the school administration knew, or should have reasonably known, about Martins “grooming, sexually harassing, stalking and/or sexually abusing Jacob and engaging in sexual violence,” according to the lawsuit. “Despite their knowledge,… (they) took no action.”

Lawsuit: District treated Pothier like a ‘perpetrator’ due to sex video

About a year before his death, GNB Voc-Tech administration became aware of a sex video of Martins and Jacob that was being viewed by other high schoolers, the complaint said.

Pothier, who was 17, was allegedly “called to the main office, confronted about the sex video, instructed to empty his pockets, turn over his cellphone, interrogated and threatened, and told that there would be disciplinary consequences for him at school and that he could be charged criminally for possession of the sex video,” the complaint read.

Pothier’s parents weren’t informed about the incident by the school, the lawsuit read. When Pothier told them about the incident, the school district told them that Pothier would be punished and his football career and job opportunities would be impacted “if Martins was found to have violated a law,” the complaint alleged.

Martins was first placed on administrative leave and then “allowed to resign, without any conditions and without any further investigation taking place,” according to the complaint. The lawsuit also alleges that Martins had groomed and pursued inappropriate relationships with other students.

The administration “regarded (Pothier) as a perpetrator who could be criminally punished and also disciplined by the District and/or school,” the lawsuit read. The complaint says that if Pothier was a female student, he would have potentially been treated differently and the school didn’t provide him with services for students who have been sexually harassed or abused.

After her resignation, Martins would still go to the high school to bring Pothier food and pick him up from school, and the school didn’t report the relationship or support Pothier further, the complaint alleges. While Pothier tried to end the relationship, Martins continued to “stalk” him and buy things for him, the lawsuit claims.

“The District and/or GNB Voc-Tech, have and had a well-established and widespread custom of treating minor males that are subject to grooming, sexual harassment, sexual abuse, and/or sexual violence by their employees, as perpetrators and wrongdoers, rather than victims resulting in no investigation, no filing of a 51A report, and no support for the male victim,” the complaint alleges.

Martins hadn’t worked at the school for nearly a year, district argues

Greg Manousos, a lawyer for the school district, acknowledged the lawsuit in a statement.

“We disagree with the allegations and will present our position in court. The School took immediate action once it became aware of the alleged inappropriate conduct,” the statement read. “At the time of the fatal car crash, the individual had not been employed by the School for nearly a year.”

In Massachusetts, the age of consent is 16. Since Pothier’s death, Cullen has been advocating for lawmakers to enshrine a law protecting teenagers who have reached the age of consent but are abused by people in “positions of authority or trust,” according to a bill filed in the Massachusetts Senate.

Cullen said her family filed the lawsuit to make that change.

“I think that our society has a blind spot against boys. I also think that it’s important for schools and teachers and mandated reporters to know they should be reporting anything they think is a problem,” she said. “That is their job. They’re mandated reporters. They should not be concerned about the age of consent, because that’s not their purview.”