LOS ANGELES – Lawyers for the Los Angeles Unified School District are facing criticism from the legal community after arguing a 14-year-old student molested by her teacher consented to the abuse, and used her sexual history against her at trial.

Thomas Edison Middle School teacher Elkis Hermida was sentenced to three years in prison for lewd acts with a child in July 2011 for a six-month sexual relationship he carried on with one of his 14-year-old students, according to media reports.

The girl’s family followed up with a civil lawsuit against the school district alleging the victim was emotionally damaged by the relationship, and L.A. Unified was partially responsible. But during the trial last November, attorneys representing the school district argued the young girl consented to sex, and used her sexual history to paint her as a money-grubbing hussy, according to 89.3 KPCC.

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“She lied to her mother so she could have sex with her teacher,” district attorney Keith Wyatt told the news site. “She went to a motel in which she engaged in voluntary consensual sex with her teacher. Why shouldn’t she be responsible for that?”

The district’s case relied on an illogical chink in California civil law that allows for the argument that minors can consent to sex in certain circumstances, and relied on previous case law that legal expert Jennifer Drobac described as “horribly flawed.”

In California, the consent age is different for criminal and civil law, Drobac told KPCC, and the LAUSD attorneys used the discrepancy to their full advantage.

Drobac called the legal tactic “shocking,” and said that the law in California and other places where the consent age doesn’t align “doesn’t make sense.”

“The same parties, same behavior, same everything, consent is no defense in a criminal trial,” she told KPCC. “But the same set of facts in a civil prosecution, consent is a complete defense. How it that possible? It’s not logical.”

Logical or not, district attorneys were able to convince L.A. County Superior Court Judge Lawrence Cho to list the victim’s name on the jury’s verdict form, meaning jurors could find her at fault, as well.

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And Wyatt did his best to convince jurors she was.

“She wants to be paid for doing something that she knew was wrong, that she acknowledged was wrong, that she knew was from the beginning,” he argued in his closing remarks, according to the news site. “She doesn’t want therapy, she wants money. That’s what they are asking for.”

Marci Hamilton, a leading expert at the Benjamin N. Cardozo Law School in New York told KPCC the district’s legal arguments – which she called “scorched earth tactics” – are “outrageous.”

She said Cho “went beyond the bounds of common sense” by listing the victim on the verdict form.

The girl’s attorney, Frank Perez, agreed.

“I have never seen a verdict form where the child has seen listed as partially responsible for his or her own molestation,” Perez told the news site.

Jurors eventually ruled in favor of the school district because they believed school officials were unaware of the relationship.

Perez said the family is appealing the decision.