Police investigating decades of alleged sex abuse at Connecticut boarding school

HARTFORD, Conn. – Wallingford Police Chief William J. Wright is reviewing a report in which Choate Rosemary Hall acknowledged decades of sexual abuse of students by former teachers at the elite private boarding school, a department spokeswoman said Friday morning.

Lt. Cheryl Bradley said Wright met with the Choate administration Thursday night and was given a copy of the investigator’s report, which found that the abuse was handled quietly and not reported to authorities. The report was written for the school’s board of trustees.

“The chief is in the process of reviewing the report and will determine a course of action at the conclusion of his review,” Bradley said Friday.

The report, released Thursday, documents actions by 12 former faculty members between 1963 and 2010, including instances of romantic relationships, groping and forced intercourse. The investigator, a former federal prosecutor with the law firm Covington & Burling LLP, named only those whose actions could be substantiated through interviews and records.

Although the report is naming 12 teachers, the Hartford Courant is not because it was unable to reach any of them for comment.

In one case, a former teacher reportedly coerced a female student in the 1990s into a relationship with him and forced her to have sex at his home, the report said. That conduct went unreported.

In 2000, another student reported that the teacher kissed her, but school administrators allowed him to remain on the faculty until he retired – 10 years later, according to the report.

Much of the abuse now recorded at Choate went unreported over the course of four decades.

Many graduates told investigators they didn’t recognize the adults’ actions as abusive or said the school’s culture made it difficult to come forward.

In all, the report by investigator Nancy Kestenbaum graphically details the experiences of 24 victims of sexual misconduct.

When students did come forward, the school handled matters “internally and quietly,” investigators wrote. Teachers were nearly always allowed to resign, and were not reported to law enforcement, according to the report. And often, the report said, they found work as educators at other schools.

That was the case with a teacher who reportedly tried to force himself on a student in a swimming pool while he was chaperoning a trip to Costa Rica in 1999, according to the report. When a male classmate tried to stop the teacher from sexually assaulting the girl, he “tried to take a swing at” the boy, the report said.

In that case, students reported what happened and the teacher was fired for just cause – but was not referred to the authorities, the report said.

He went on to work as an administrator at Henry Abbott Technical High School in Danbury, Harrison High School in New York and Newtown High School, according to the report.

In each of the 12 instances in which the law firm named a former faculty member, it also included their post-Choate employment history and any response to the allegations.

The teacher was one of the few former faculty who responded to the report. He denied any sexual misconduct and even recalled telling administrators at the time, “If I did something that bad, I honestly would remember it,” the report said.

Most former faculty members named in the report, however, either declined to speak to investigators about the allegations or did not respond.

Those who did not respond included a former English teacher and soccer coach, the report said. In 2013, the school investigated allegations that the teacher had engaged in sexual misconduct – calling a student into his bedroom when she’d come to him for academic help – but he denied that and other allegations, the report said.

He retired from Choate in June.

“Our interviews and school records showed that sometimes the school moved quickly and decisively,” the report said. “In other cases, it was slower to respond and allowed the faculty member to remain at the school, sometimes with restrictions on his or her activity, for a considerable length of time.”

The school began writing to its community in 2014, asking alumni to come forward with any information about inappropriate adult behavior they experienced at Choate. In October, the board announced it had hired Kestenbaum to conduct the independent investigation into reports of sexual misconduct.

It also established a therapy fund to help alumni who experienced sexual abuse – a fund alumni may access by calling a Choate-specific line at the Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network.

School spokeswoman Lorraine Connelly provided an additional statement from the school Thursday night:

“On behalf of Choate Rosemary Hall, we profoundly apologize. The conduct of these adults violated the foundation of our community: the sacred trust between students and the adults charged with their care. We honor and thank the survivors of sexual misconduct who came forward.”