AUGUSTA – The state attorney general said Wednesday he has charged a former Hodgdon High School student with violating the Maine Civil Rights Act by taunting and attacking a classmate of Mexican descent.

Joshua Lee, 17, of Haynesville is listed as defendant in a case filed on April 6 in Aroostook County Superior Court. Lee has until Tuesday to respond to the civil charges, said Assistant Attorney General Susan Sparaco, who is prosecuting the case.

“We are hoping he comes forward to resolve these charges and we can get an injunction,” Sparaco said Wednesday.

The complaint, submitted by Attorney General G. Steven Rowe, alleges that Lee has “a history of conduct evidencing bias and hatred toward people of different races, ethnic backgrounds and religions.”

That history came to a head on Dec. 21, 2004, when Lee allegedly assaulted a 16-year-old male student. The students’ paths, however, had crossed before that.

According to the complaint, Lee followed the student through the school’s hallways three weeks prior on Dec. 2, 2004, taunting him with names such as “dirty Mexican” and “broccoli picker.”

Lee is said to have made similar comments before, but on this occasion, Hodgdon High School’s assistant principal, David Minzy, overheard the remarks and suspended Lee pending an expulsion hearing.

Lee was expelled from school on Dec. 20, but returned the next day, waited for the student in the school’s parking lot and attacked him, the complaint alleges.

“Taunting and assaulting a child because of his or her ethnicity is not only shameful, it is illegal,” Rowe said in a statement. “The fact that the perpetrator is a fellow student does not excuse such behavior; rather, it makes it all the more deplorable.”

Lee has not hired an attorney, Sparaco said, and efforts Wednesday to reach the juvenile were unsuccessful.

After the alleged attack, the school asked the Aroostook County Sheriffs Department to investigate the incident.

“Once in a while, we get a case like this, but it doesn’t happen often,” Lt. Keith Wheeler said Wednesday.

The details of the investigation were turned over to the Attorney General’s Office, which filed the civil charges nearly four months after the incident.

Lee also may face criminal charges, Sparaco said, but those would come from the Aroostook County District Attorney’s Office. Prosecutors typically do not divulge details in criminal cases involving minors.

Deborah Stewart, superintendent of SAD 70, which includes Hodgdon High School, said Wednesday that the incident was a shock. “I hope it is an isolated incident, but I’m not going to say that these things don’t happen here,” Stewart said.

Lee’s conduct also includes disparaging remarks made to an African-American female student, wearing a Ku Klux Klan hood in school, and offensive comments directed towards a Jewish teacher, according to the complaint.

Until Dec. 21, though, Lee’s behavior had not turned violent.

Under the complaint, the state is asking for an injunction that, among other things, would prohibit Lee from having any communication with the victim and would prohibit him from coming within 150 feet of Hodgdon High School.

The state also wants Lee to acknowledge that he violated the Maine Civil Rights Act, which authorizes the state attorney general to seek restraining orders against people who commit violence, make threats of violence or cause property damage motivated by bias. Any violation of the act is subject to a $5,000 fine.

Hodgdon High School, which has about 220 students, has worked with civil rights groups to educate students both after and prior to the incident, Stewart said. She said she has never seen a case like this in her nine years as administrator for SAD 70.