The lawsuit also claims that the district and school employees failed to investigate multiple credible reports that Hunt was sexually abusing students.
A Dayton Daily News review of school records earlier this year determined that Hunt resigned from Vandalia-Butler City Schools more than a decade and a half ago after he was accused of having inappropriate conversations and contact with students.
Hunt went on to work for at least five other local schools and districts. This newspaper’s investigation also discovered a handwritten note in his school personnel file at Eaton Community Schools that suggests that someone with the district in 2011 learned about allegations that Hunt “was having a sexually explicit relationship with a 14-year-old boy” while at Vandalia.
Hunt was arrested and charged earlier this year with 82 felonies for allegedly raping and sexually assaulting eight victims who were male students at Northmont City Schools or who worked at his pipe organ servicing business.
The plaintiffs in the new lawsuit are four former male students, who are now adults, who live in Englewood and Cincinnati. Three of the accusers attended Northmont High School from 2012 to 2016, while one was a student from 2021 to 2025.
The lawsuit claims that Northmont schools Superintendent Anthony Thomas failed to investigate or remove Hunt from having student contact after he received a detailed email in October 2021 that explicitly described Hunt’s pattern of grooming students.
According to the civil complaint, a former student wrote Thomas to say Hunt had befriended him in school and had him over to his house to do some work. The former student claimed that Hunt started sending him messages on social media that became increasingly inappropriate, and Hunt tried to manipulate him into having sexual conversations.
The complaint also alleges that Hunt was not prevented from having student contact earlier this year even after school officials were aware of sexual abuse allegations. Hunt allegedly drugged and raped one of his victims just four days before he was taken into custody, the lawsuit states.
Thomas, who earlier this month announced he would be retiring at the end of this year, took over as head of the district in 2016. The lawsuit also names as a defendant former Northmont Superintendent Sarah Zatik, who led the district from 2010 to 2016. The plaintiffs accuse Zatik of failing to properly review Hunt’s personnel file from previous employers and failing to conduct an adequate background check.
“Had minimal due diligence been performed, Northmont would have discovered Hunt’s disqualifying history,” the lawsuit states.
The civil complaint says that the plaintiffs were sexually assaulted at Hunt’s homes in Lewisburg and Brookville, a camper in Lima and at various local churches, the Dayton Masonic Temple and the Dayton Art Institute.
Two of the victims allege they met Hunt on Northmont’s marching band bus in 2013 and 2014, and Hunt recruited them to work for his pipe organ repair and cleaning business. One of the victims alleges Hunt assaulted him “almost daily, sometimes multiple times per day” during his time at Northmont, the complaint states.
The lawsuit says school officials knew that Hunt employed students at his private business but failed to investigate these inappropriate relationships. The legal document also claims that another student from Tri-County North School District and his family notified Tri-County and Northmont school administrators about Hunt’s alleged sexual abuse, but neither district took any action.
The complaint also claims that a community member who learned about Hunt’s abuse from one of the victims called Northmont schools multiple times beginning in late 2021 to report that Hunt was sexually assaulting and having inappropriate relationships with students.
The Northmont School District, Thomas and Zatik did not immediately return requests for comment. This story will be updated.
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