BY MAIRE O’NEILL
maire@losalamosreporter.com
Editor’s note: The content of this article my be disturbing to some readers.
Santa Fe attorney Trent A. Howell of Santa Fe has filed another law suit against Los Alamos Public Schools, the Los Alamos School Board and Supt. Jennifer Guy. This suit, filed Oct. 13 in U.S. District Court also names Supt. Guy in her personal capacity, Los Alamos County, Immaculate Heart of Mary Parish, the Archdiocese of Santa Fe and Adrian Anthony Pizana Ferran.
The complaint for damages by a 14-year old girl and her parents is in connection with a case involving a sexual assault against the female Los Alamos High School freshman during school hours by 26-year old Ferran, who had been allowed access to the auto shop at the school and spent several hours on campus before taking the girl off campus with him. See full complaint at https://drive.proton.me/urls/HFK6P57628#Z0JHUgOD1chd
The Los Alamos Reporter covered the Los Alamos Police Department initial investigation of the Dec. 10, 2025 incident in a detailed Dec. 19 article at https://losalamosreporter.com/2025/12/19/lapd-documents-allege-26-year-old-adrian-ferran-admitted-to-criminal-sexual-penetration-of-minor-aged-14/, which also covers Ferran’s initial hearing before Los Alamos Magistrate Judge Catherine Taylor.
Details in the Court documents are different to a description of what happened at LAHS as described by Supt. Guy in a letter to LAHS parents https://losalamosreporter.com/2025/12/19/laps-sends-information-about-off-campus-incident-involving-students-and-campus-visitor-to-parents-guardian
The complaint describes Guy’s letter to parents as “rife with falsehoods” misleading parents about among other things, Ferran being related to any LAHS student. his publicly known background, the hours he was allowed to come, remain, go off and back on campus and interact with a 14-year old girl “with whom he had no real or plausible connection”.
Although the incident occurred December 10 and Supt. Guy provided video, a written report from a security employee and other information to LAPD on December 16, her December 19 email to parents implies that “all improprieties in the incident occurred off campus”, the complaint states. The complaint accuses Guy of whitewashing and covering up true events, as well as creating a false public perception of the incident “removing blame or responsibility from the District, the Board and herself”. It says the email suggests that the entire indicent was the fault and problem of the 14-year olf girl “without any school role or duty”.
The complaint states that LAPD,when conducting their investigations including examinations of witnesses were “demeaning” to the victim and “sympathetic to Ferran” and “further potentially intended to cover tracks of LAPD Cpl. Amos Smith’s malfeason as a LAHS SRO”.
Questioning language used by Det. Sgt. Ryan Wolking with Ferran indicates that he referred to the victim as a young woman. The complaint states that he was speaking of a 14-year old child and that New Mexico law, no one under 17 can legally consent to sexual contact or penetration with an adult.
Ferran directly admitted to LAPD officers that he knew the victim was 14 years old.
“The District, the Board and all LAHS agents and contractors were at all times aware that the victim as a first-semester freshman was 14-years old,” the complaint states. It adds that there was no timely aattendance or action over the victim’s absence from each class remained in Ferran’s company and that “noone noted her absence or thought to look for her”.
The complaint states that there were no safeguards in place to protect against a student being kidnapped and raped without any official or employee even realizing that the student was missing over several hours.
“Supt. Guy failed to issue or mplement any policy or safety protocol at LAHS regarding missing and failed to implement any specific policy for the monitoring of adult members of the public charged with crimes of violence or with a history of domestic or secual violence,” the complaint reads, adding that those named in the suit are liable for sexual assault and sexual harassment against LAHS students that it anticipated or should have anticipated.
The complaint that as a result of the violations of the Human Rights Act, the victim has suffered losses of educational opportunities and benefits in addition to significant injuries and damages that include mental anguish and distress, emotional anxiety and distress, physical pain and suffering, lost future earnings and earning capacity, expenses for past and future medical and psychological care as well as attorney fees and costs.
“The defendants knew an open campus allowed for dangerous conduct and knew the conditions necessary to keep students safe…Failure to adhere to these standards enabled Ferran to intoxicate, continue to contribute to the delinquency of, transport and statutorialy rape (the victim) during school hours through an uninterupted sequence beginning and continuing both on and off school property, without any employee even noticing, caring or timely acting in any way on the victim being missing.” the complaint states.
A jury trial on “all issues so triable” has been requested in the case has been requested by the plaintiffs.
Follow the Los Alamos Reporter for more coverage of the lawsuit and its various aspects, including the background on the School District’s decision to maintain an open campus at LAHS, the contract between LAPS and LAPD for deployment of School Resource Officers, the issue of security at parking lots – public, private, schools, churches, or parks and picnic areas within the County, and of course, who approves the messages sent to the public by LAPS on important issue.