After lawsuit, police reopen investigation; dozens of alums demand change (Boston Globe)

by Zoe Greenberg (December 17, 2020)

A lawsuit filed earlier this month against Portsmouth Abbey School and a former teacher there has prompted law enforcement to reopen an investigation into an allegation of sexual abuse by the teacher.

A spokesperson for the Portsmouth, R.I., police confirmed the development on Thursday. And in another indication that the fallout from the case is far from over, more than 80 alumni, parents of alumni, and former faculty members of the Abbey called Wednesday for an independent inquiry into the “extremely disturbing” allegation of sexual abuse and the school’s subsequent handling of the case, which was detailed in a Globe article earlier this month. In a letter to the Board of Regents obtained by the Globe, Abbey alumni demanded that the school’s main leadership — Headmaster Daniel McDonough, Assistant Headmaster John Perreira, and Board of Regents Chair Christopher Behnke — be placed on leave for the duration of the investigation.

“The school had the opportunity to come clean about everything, and they did not,” said Frank Pagliaro, a 2010 alumnus and former faculty member, in an interview. “All this outrage really led me to start writing a letter. I’ve had input from a lot of alums.”

The Abbey did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the letter, which was signed by alumni who graduated in years spanning from the early 1970s to 2019. The lawsuit was filed by an anonymous former student whom the Globe is identifying by the first letter of her name, E.

Filed in Rhode Island federal court, the lawsuit said E. was sexually abused by a teacher, Michael Bowen Smith, beginning when she was a 15-year-old sophomore. It also said that the Abbey not only failed to protect E. as a student, but also set her up to receive poor legal advice that benefited the school. Smith has not responded to requests for comment on the allegations.

E., through her lawyer Dave Ring, said the alumni response made a difference. “It has been painful and isolating to relive and publicize my experiences at the Abbey, but the support I’ve received from fellow alumni and others has helped me realize that I am not alone,” she said in a statement.

Until the school met their demands, the alumni and others wrote, “we will be unable, in good conscience, to make donations, solicit donations, attend School events, or encourage others to consider sending their own children to the School.”

“I’ve been devoted to the school for 55 years. Don’t weasel with me. If the kids knew, the faculty knew,” said an alumnus who started at the school in 1966 and signed onto the letter, but requested anonymity because of his work.

The lawsuit alleged that the Abbey paid for E. to be represented by a law firm in New Mexico that never told her the statute of limitations to bring action against her former boarding school would soon expire. School administrators “wanted to keep the potential scandal contained, and commenced to do so by ‘steering’ Plaintiff to use the School’s outside consultant to ‘help’ her out of this predicament,” the lawsuit says.

Lawsuits were filed against the law firm, Lewis Roca Rothgerber Christie, in New Mexico and against Portsmouth Abbey and Smith in Rhode Island earlier this month.

Lewis Roca Rothgerber Christie strongly disputed the allegations, saying the written scope of the firm’s engagement was narrow and couldn’t have included advice about Rhode Island law, and that E.’s arrangement to have the school reimburse her for the fees was made before the firm was contacted and without its involvement. In their letter, the alumni pressed the school to answer a series of questions about E.’s case, including whether the Abbey granted the state attorney general full access to information and witnesses under its control after E. reported the abuse; whether the Abbey provided recommendations for Smith when he sought employment elsewhere; and whether any parent was threatened with a child’s dismissal for attempting to discuss the allegations with the school.

The alumni also asked the school to create a committee made up of “alumni, Board members, staff, and outside counsel” to conduct the investigation.