Federal lawsuit is also filed against teacher, principal, and sheriff’s deputy responsible for having 17-year-old Jackson Leggett arrested and thrown in juvie.
CHICAGO — On Friday, attorneys for Jackson Leggett, 19, filed a lawsuit in federal court, charging Mr. Leggett’s former high school principal, his former teacher, and a Kendall County Sheriff’s Deputy with malicious prosecution, saying they deliberately escalated an innocuous classroom joke to a criminal matter.
In October of 2024, Jackson Leggett was 17 years old, and just beginning his senior year at Newark Community High School (NCHS) in Kendall County. Along with more than a dozen of his classmates, he had participated in “senior pranks,” which included toilet-papering the home of Principal Timothy Ulrich and parking boats in the school parking lot.
This pranking was an annual tradition, unofficially sanctioned by the school. (In fact, the principal, Timothy Ulrich, was present for both pranks, and only cautioned the kids not to do any permanent damage.) However, according to the complaint, it was joking about these pranks—not even the pranks themselves—that led to Jackson Leggett being arrested, charged with a felony, and thrown in a juvenile detention facility for more than a week, turning his life upside down and completely disrupting his last year of high school.
According to the complaint, several students had been laughing about the pranks in the classroom of teacher Camille Quillen, who told them they could get in trouble for the pranks. “Why?” Mr. Leggett is alleged to have said. “It’s not like we burned down the school.” Ms. Quillen—who later told police she was frustrated at her inability to control the class—reported the incident to Principal Ulrich with embellishment. Even then, she conceded that the comments had been made as jokes.
At most, the incident should have been a matter of school discipline, and in fact that was how it was initially dealt with: Mr. Leggett and another student were given three-day suspensions.
But that punishment—though disproportionate—was apparently insufficient punishment in the eyes of Principal Ulrich, who was determined to see Mr. Leggett prosecuted as a criminal. He engaged the school’s resource officer, Deputy Stewart Blouin, who then interviewed Quillen and rightfully determined that it wasn’t a criminal matter. But Ulrich kept pushing, and Blouin eventually gave in to his demands and—with no probable cause—arrested Jackson Leggett. Blouin also reported Mr. Leggett to state authorities as a “clear and present danger.”
“For reasons best known to him, Principal Ulrich chose to escalate this minor incident, ridiculously and recklessly, to a criminal matter,” says attorney Jonathan Brayman of Breen & Pugh. “Ulrich took unwarranted and potentially ruinous action against a child who had committed no crime. And while Jackson is still paying a price—for example, his Second Amendment rights have yet to be restored—Ulrich has been promoted to Superintendent of the District.”
Mr. Leggett, despite his innocence of any crime, spent eight days locked in a juvenile detention facility with individuals who allegedly had committed serious, violent offenses. According to the complaint, Mr. Leggett was subjected to a psychological assessment during this time, and was found to be no threat and in no way mentally disturbed. The doctor, in fact, made a point of saying that the problem lay with the school, not Mr. Leggett.
Mr. Leggett then spent another seven months with a felony charge hanging over his head before all charges were eventually dropped. By then, his life had been turned upside down. He was removed from the school for the remainder of his senior year and forced to attend classes remotely. He was barred from playing basketball—a sport to which he was devoted—and prohibited from attending his senior prom, and denied the chance to walk across the stage at graduation with his friends and classmates. He was left out of the school yearbook.
“These are people—the teacher, the principal, and the deputy—who all should have had Jackson’s best interests at heart,” says attorney Julia Rickert of the civil rights law firm of Loevy + Loevy. “Instead, they tried to ruin a good kid’s future over something they all knew was just a joke. They need to be held accountable, for the sake of all children in the District and their parents.”
The complaint names Ulrich, Quillen, and Blouin as individual defendants, as well as their employers Newark Community High School District 18 and Kendall County. It charges them with ten separate counts of violations of Mr. Leggett’s rights under federal and state law, including malicious prosecution, civil conspiracy, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and violations of the First, Second, Fourth, and Fourteenth Amendments.
Mr. Leggett is represented by Julia Rickert of Loevy + Loevy, Zach Hofeld of the Law Offices of Al Hofeld, Jr., and Jonathan Brayman of Breen & Pugh.
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