Montana School District Denies It Knew About Athletic Trainer's Decades Of Sexual Abuse 

The Miles City Unified School District in Montana has denied that it had any knowledge of sexual abuse carried out by James “Doc” Jensen, who was an athletic trainer at a Custer County high school from the early 1970s through 1998. The denial was in response to a lawsuit filed against the school district on behalf of Jensen’s alleged victims.

When the lawsuit, which claims Jensen systematically groomed and abused as many as 100 high school athletes, was filed in September, Jensen admitted to the :

“I did masturbate some of the boys,” he said. “And I’m sorry for that. But, the lawsuit said there was also oral sex and anal probing, and that isn’t true.”

The 78-year-old Jensen said he hoped his actions “didn’t do a lot of emotional or other trauma to the boys.”

Jensen also told the paper that he was simply trying to carry out a training program that was based in Chinese medicine. “There was nothing sexual in it for me,” he said. According to the lawsuit, Jennings told the athletes that his “program” was designed to increase their testosterone, and involved Jensen anally penetrating them with his fingers as well as masturbating them.

Though the school district denied that it had any knowledge of Jensen’s abuse, it did admit in its response to the lawsuit that it had received a complaint about Jensen from one parent in 1997. From the :

The district’s response Monday acknowledges that the district received a complaint from a parent about Jensen in late 1997.

“The School District further admits that the complaint received was investigated and, upon information and belief, involved ‘general’ unease and not the specific concerns of the present complaint,” the response states.

The cross-complaint described the concern as “vague in nature and nothing near the allegations recently made.”

The school district claims it investigated and found two other students who Jensen had made “uncomfortable,” and instructed him on Dec. 15, 1997, to stop giving “body rub downs” to students and to only do his work under the supervision of coaches.

[ Billings Gazette]