Audrie Pott: Family Planning Civil Action Lawsuit Against Suspects

San Jose, CA — The family of 15-year-old Audrie Pott, the California teenager who took her own life after being sexually battered and then cyberbullied, is planning to file a civil action lawsuit against the three suspects.

Family spokesman Ed Vasquez said Monday that Pott’s family wanted to go public with how they found out about her assault, and they also wanted to share what they knew about the three boys who were arrested last Thursday. The teenagers’ arrest came eight months after Pott wrote online that her life was ruined and hanged herself.

The three 16-year-olds are currently being held in the Santa Clara County detention center. Two of the teens were students at Saratoga High — where Pott was also a student — and the other was a former Saratoga student currently attending Christopher High in Gilroy. Family attorney Robert Allard said the three suspects were friends of Pott.

The three suspects have issued a statement through their lawyers: “Much of what has been reported over the last several days is inaccurate. Most disturbing is the attempt to link Audrey’s [sic] suicide to the specific actions of these three boys.”

Students at Saratoga High said that pictures of Pott were not circulated around the school, as has been reported by some media outlets. Nor were they posted on Facebook, they said.

Catherine Tang told the Saratoga High School Falcon, “I was really close friends with Audrie, and I haven’t even seen it. I know it was not all over Facebook and viral like how the news is saying. I know that it wasn’t that the whole school knew about it.”

The family has set up the Audrie Pott Foundation to provide information about the teen, who was described as a “gifted art student, a writer and a musician who played viola and piano,” and to raise money to provide music and art scholarships to students in the Bay Area.