BALTIMORE — Alyssa Mendez, 20, and her legal counsel, have filed a 4-count lawsuit against the National Federation of the Blind (NFB) for repeated sexual assault.
Mendez was enrolled as a minor in a training failure and the lawsuit alleges that NFB has systematic failures that enabled sexual assault against her and other NFB student.
In 2018, Mendez was enrolled as a 16-year-old trainee in the NFB's two-month affiliated program and this is where the abuse began.
Court documents state that NFB and its members have long known that sexual predators worked within its organizations to take advantage of the blind.
They go on to say that Mendez was sexually assaulted by then 23-year-old Michael Ausbun, an intern and vice president of NFB's National Association of Blind Students division.
The NFB failed to address these issues, and as a result, Mendez was repeatedly abused.
According to the court docs, an investigation was only launched after Mendez came forward on her own.
Based on the investigation, Ausbun was temporarily suspended for five years and returned to the organization, provided he met confidential guidelines.
In a 2020 "Open Letter of Apology," NFB's President, Mark Riccobono, acknowledged that NFB failed to deliver a safe environment for vulnerable persons under its care.
As a result, a special report was created to confirm that sexual assault of NFB members was widespread. The report showed that NFB received 69 complaints, alleging a total of 55 incidents just in the period between December 2020 and July 2021.
