Los Angeles school district settles teacher sex suit for $5M

The Los Angeles Unified School District will pay $5 million to settle a lawsuit filed on behalf of a student who was molested by a teacher when she was 13.

The agreement came on the eve of jury selection Friday. According to her lawyers it would be the largest payout the nation's second-largest school district has ever made to a single sexual-abuse victim.

In a statement, the school district said it couldn't discuss the case because the agreement hadn’t been "executed or approved by the court."

According to a transcript of Friday's hearing, lawyers for the district agreed to the payment and said they hoped to make the payment within 30 days.

According to her lawyers, the girl was 13 during the 2010/2011 school year when she was "groomed and manipulated" into having sex with her eighth-grade mathematics teacher at Thomas Alva Edison Middle School.

Elkis Hermida, who was then 30, molested the girl for seven months in the classroom and near campus. He was arrested in 2011 after a friend of the girl told a teacher about the relationship.

Hermida pleaded no contest to one count of committing lewd acts upon a victim aged 14 and was sentenced to three years in prison.