In April, sheriff's officers from Worth County, Georgia popped up at Worth High School for a surprise drug raid, The Washington Post reports.

Without a warrant, the officers conducted body searches on an estimated 900 students, touching the genitals and breasts of several of them. No drugs were found.

The students and their parents were understandably upset, and the Southern Center for Human Rights stepped in to defend the students' rights in court, suing the sheriff and the officers who conducted the search.

Georgia itself took action as well. The state's governor, Nathan Deal, suspended Sheriff Jeff Hobby from duty until he'd finished with his day in court, or until his term ended, whichever came first.

This week, the Southern Center for Human Rights announced that its suit has resulted in a $3 million settlement for the students, pending the approval of a judge.

The money is just the beginning of Hobby's troubles. According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, he has been indicted on serious criminal charges by a grand jury, having been found guilty of sexual battery, false imprisonment and violation of oath of office.

Norman Crowe, Hobby's lawyer, said that his client didn't do anything wrong because while he was present at the raid, he didn't personally conduct any of the searches.

“The sheriff’s position is that he’s not guilty,” Crowe said. “He’s committed no crime.”

The lawsuit filed by the Southern Center for Human Rights begs to differ, claiming that the sheriff and his deputies put the school on lockdown for four hours and illegally seized students phones during that time so that they couldn't contact their parents. 

Furthermore, the suit claims that the lawpeople forced the students to stay sequestered in “specified areas without any explanation.”

Dozens of officers conducted the searches, the suit claims, which according to the students often had more in common with sexual assault than anything else, noting, “Deputies touched and manipulated students’ breasts and genitals.”

Citing the specific testimony of a number of students, the lawsuit goes on to claim that “defendants’ searches of students were intrusive, performed in an aggressive manner, and done in full view of other students." 

A lawyer for the school district said that the school had found the student's account of the search to be accurate; the sheriff's office disagrees, however, and blamed the whole thing on one rogue deputy who they say conducted a search “that was more intrusive than instructed by the sheriff.”

Some parents feel that the actions being taken against the department don't go far enough. While Hobby was indicted by the grand jury, the same jury cleared many of his officers.

Amaryllis Coleman is one of those frustrated parents; she said that one of the officers let off the hook touched her daughter's vagina through the pockets of her jeans and lifted her bra to fondle her breasts.

“I’m disappointed that the deputy that violated my daughter was not indicted,” Coleman said. “I don’t know how I’m going to tell this to my daughter.”