Tanya Kach was raped a week after she sneaked into the McKeesport home of a school security guard to watch the Steelers and Dallas Cowboys play in Super Bowl XXX, her lawyer alleges in court documents filed Thursday.
Days later, on Feb. 10, 1996, the troubled 14-year-old ran away from home and disappeared -- only to re-emerge a decade later claiming Thomas Hose, the security guard/lover/abductor, had held her captive all that time.
School officials and police knew about the rape, Kach's inappropriate relationship with Hose and an abusive family life but failed to protect her, lawyer Lawrence Fisher argued in a 100-page brief urging a federal judge not to dismiss the lawsuit at the request of the defendants -- McKeesport municipal and school officials as well as St. Moritz Security Services, which Fisher accused of "haphazardly hiring" Hose to work at Cornell Middle School.
Kach, now 26, claims McKeesport officials and St. Moritz violated her constitutional rights.
Hose, 50, is serving 15 years in state prison on child sex offenses related to Kach's disappearance and confinement.
Fisher claims Kach developed a crush on Hose and would skip class to spend time with him, initiated their first kiss and finally began calling and visiting him at home.
During their frequent conversations, Kach confided to Hose that she'd been raped, physically abused and reported relatives abusing drugs and alcohol. Fisher said Kach told Hose about a sexual relationship she had with a 20-year-old man.
Fisher claims Hose never reported any of these accusations to school officials or police because St. Moritz and the school district failed to train him properly.
Fisher claims police failed to protect Kach, even after responding to numerous calls from the school and a 3 a.m. domestic disturbance at her home a month before she disappeared.
A report from the Allegheny County Office of Children, Youth and Families for the domestic incident states that Kach reported inappropriate sexual behavior to a police officer, who did not investigate the accusation.
"The (child) has made accusations that a school guard tried to 'molest' her in the past," the report quoted a McKeesport police officer as saying.
Hose admitted in a deposition that he told Kach about the murder of Kimberly Krimm, a 14-year-old Cornell student whose body was found in a cemetery near Hose's home. Police investigated Hose for Krimm's death but no charges were ever filed.
Hose said he only told Kach about her classmate's death to keep her from leaving him, he said in his deposition. He said he was not trying to make her believe he would hurt her.
"I loved that girl," Hose said during the November deposition at the State Correctional Institution at Camp Hill. "I would have never done anything to hurt her, and I didn't."
