A lawsuit against the Chicago Blackhawks filed by a former high school student in Michigan who said he was sexually assaulted by Brad Aldrich, a former Blackhawks assistant coach, has been dismissed, the attorney representing the student said Monday.
Susan Loggans, the attorney who represents the former student and who represented the former Blackhawks player who settled with the team earlier this month, told The Associated Press on Monday an order was entered in the case last week in Cook County Circuit Court, without commenting on the specifics of the order or why the case was dismissed.
The former student filed the lawsuit against the Blackhawks in May over the organization providing positive references to employers for Aldrich following his departure from the organization over accusations that he sexually assaulted a player in 2010, which the organization did not act on for weeks.
The positive references allegedly led to Aldrich obtaining the position he was in when he sexually assaulted the student at an end-of-season gathering for the Houghton High School hockey team in 2013.
Aldrich was convicted on a charge of fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct involving a student and is on Michigan's registry of sex offenders because of the incident, according to WBEZ, a Chicago NPR affiliate.
Earlier this month, a confidential settlement was reached in the lawsuit filed against the organization by former Blackhawks player Kyle Beach, the player who said he was sexually assaulted by Aldrich in 2010.
The organization allegedly waited several weeks, until after their playoff run was over, to contact the team's human resources department about the incident.
The Blackhawks also declined to comment Monday.
Loggans also represented Beach in his lawsuit against the Blackhawks. Beach sued the team over how it handled his allegations of sexual assault by Aldrich.
Beach alleged that he was assaulted by Aldrich during the team's 2010 Stanley Cup run. Aldrich told investigators the encounter was consensual.
Beach told investigators that Aldrich, a video coach at the time, threatened him with a souvenir baseball bat before forcibly performing oral sex on him and masturbating on the player's back.
An independent review, commissioned by the team and released in October, showed the organization badly mishandled Beach's allegations.
The fallout included top executives losing their jobs in Chicago and stretched to other teams, including the Florida Panthers, whose veteran coach, Joel Quenneville — the coach of the Blackhawks at the time — resigned. The NHL fined Chicago $2 million.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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