A federal judge has refused to free Dover Area School District from a lawsuit filed by a former female student who for years was sexually abused by her music teacher.

That teacher, Matthew Puterbaugh, is also a defendant in the U.S. Middle District Court suit. He is serving a sentence of 15 years in federal prison for possessing child pornography, plus a 5- to 10-year state prison term for statutory sexual assault and indecent assault.

Chief Judge Christopher C. Conner in a recent ruling kept the girl’s federal lawsuit alive by refusing pleas by the district and Lincoln Intermediate Unit 12 to dismiss all of her claims against them.

The girl, identified only by her initials, contends that district and intermediate unit officials failed to protect her despite numerous reports that she was being abused by Puterbaugh. She also claims Puterbaugh impregnated her when she was 13 and that she had an abortion in Maryland.

The sexual abuse began when she started taking music lessons from Puterbaugh in 2001, she contends. Puterbaugh has replied to her allegations by claiming he never forced the girl to engage in sex acts and did not abuse her in the course of his job.

In keeping the district and intermediate unit in the case, Conner cited the girl’s allegations that officials displayed deliberate indifference by not acting appropriately when alerted repeatedly that Puterbaugh was molesting her. She contends that when she made an abuse claim in 2004 district teachers responded by urging her to recant. Puterbaugh was arrested 10 years later.

“These charges are sufficient to place the district on notice of the need to take action, and to train its employees accordingly, in order to avoid student injury,” Conner found. The girl’s assertion that teachers pressured her to recant her charges against Puterbaugh “further evinces constitutional deficiencies in the district’s training regiment,” he added.

If school staff really did convince the girl to withdraw her abuse claims, such “gratuitous conduct” would have “amplified (the girl’s) vulnerability to further harm from Puterbaugh,” Conner wrote.

The suit can proceed against the district and intermediate unit on the girl’s contentions of sexual harassment as well, he ruled.