A second lawsuit has been filed against the New Hanover County School board pertaining to a sexual assault on students by a teacher.

“Today, our firm filed a second lawsuit against the New Hanover County Board of Education for sexual assaults alleged to have been committed on victims of former Roland Grise Middle School band teacher, Peter Michael Frank,” said Martin Ramey, an attorney with the Rhine Law Firm, in an email to the media.

Peter Michael Frank

Peter Michael Frank, age 47, was arrested Monday, Jan. 27, after turning himself in to police.  At the time of his arrest, he was with six counts of indecent liberties with a child and six counts of indecent liberties with a student.

He was issued a $750,000 secured bond and he was remanded to the New Hanover County Detention Facility.

On March 3, North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein announced that a Grand Jury in New Hanover County had returned an indictment charging Peter Michael Frank with 17 new counts.

The indictment added to Frank’s secured bond and now stands at $850,000.

Attached to the media email from the Rhine Law Firm were a news release and a copy of the complaint which was filed in New Hanover Superior Court as Case No. 20 CVS 1395.

The lawsuit alleges that Frank sexually assaulted and exploited two named plaintiffs while they were students in middle school.  The suit seeks class-action certification on behalf of all of Frank ’s victims and states many of the victims “were aged 12 to 14 years old at the time and span some two decades.”

“Once again, our community faces chilling allegations that another predator was allowed to lurk within our schools for years preying on innocent young lives,” said Joel Rhine, of the Rhine Law Firm, in the press release.

The Rhine Law Firm is also representing victims of Michael Kelly, another New Hanover teacher had numerous victims spanning a 20-year period. Kelly was convicted after pleading guilty to nearly 60 charges in June of 2019.

Read about the civil suit and a summary of the Kelly Case.

Read the full filing against the New Hanover School Board and Peter Frank: