LODI — A California school district on Tuesday agreed to pay $4.75 million to settle a lawsuit filed by a special-needs girl who was molested by a school bus driver.

The settlement was announced Tuesday in San Joaquin County Superior Court, where a jury was determining how much the Lodi Unified School District must pay in damages to the victim, who was 8 years old when she was molested in 2010.

Last week, jurors unanimously decided the school district was negligent in hiring Richard Evans, 61, even though officials knew he had a misdemeanor conviction for having sex with a prostitute in 2000.

In 2011, Evans was sentenced to 25 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to multiple felonies, including child molestation, kidnapping and lewd acts on a minor.

“This settlement provides some small measure of justice for a little girl who suffered horrible abuse at the hand of a school bus driver who should never have been hired,” said the victim’s attorney, John Manly.