A Mater Dei High School student athlete suffered a broken jaw in an attack orchestrated by a classmate and carried out by two football players who repeatedly punched him in the head and the face, according to a lawsuit filed in Orange County Superior Court.
The details of the beating, described in a May lawsuit and first reported this week, follow weeks of controversy over the conduct of players and adults involved in the storied Santa Ana football program. A lawsuit filed late last month accused the school of a culture of hazing following a violent locker-room altercation that left a new player with a traumatic brain injury.
Mater Dei, the consensus No. 1 team in the nation, will play in the state championship Saturday against San Mateo Serra.
The lawsuit over the athlete’s broken jaw was first reported by the Orange County Register. The complaint describes an “orchestrated attack” in 2019 planned by a Mater Dei student who “erroneously” believed that a basketball player had shared an embarrassing video of him online.
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