Overview
- A Jennings County jury found 16-year-old Landon Doty, who was tried as an adult, guilty on charges including rape, attempted rape, child molesting, sexual battery, criminal confinement and public indecency.
- Jurors watched school bus surveillance video behind closed doors after a bus monitor reported Doty pushing the child and asked the driver to stop so the students could be separated.
- The boy’s family filed a federal lawsuit against the Jennings County School Corporation, the bus driver and a bus monitor, alleging 14 assaults on bus rides between February and mid-April 2025.
- Doty denied sexual contact and called his actions “calming techniques,” while his attorneys pointed to a lack of DNA evidence and testimony from the driver and monitor that they did not see sexual acts.
- Sentencing has not been set as Doty’s grandmother says the verdict will be appealed, and the civil case could spur tighter rules for bus supervision of students with disabilities.