The Star-Ledger
December 30, 2011
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2011/12/police_no_signs_of_sexual_abus.html
 |
| A copy photo from a 2010 Bernardsville Middle School yearbook of Assistant Principal Patrick Lott. Lott is accused of secretly videotaping boys showering in the locker room at Immaculata High School in Somerville. |
Fred Howlett spent two hours with his old friend, Patrick Lott, at the Immaculata High School football banquet earlier this month, "talking about everything and anything," and it all seemed so normal.
The two men shared a passion for football and coaching, athletes and airplanes, and the conversation touched on all of those topics and more. The fellow football coaches told their favorite stories and laughed at the tales of others. They cheered award winners from the just-concluded season and reminisced about the stars of the past.
Nothing appeared out of the ordinary.
"Pat seemed normal, natural," said Howlett, who coached with Lott at Immaculata. "I never got an impression anything was wrong."
But the smiling, upbeat Lott was hiding a dark secret, prosecutors say. And within two weeks of that meal, shared by 200 back-slapping athletes and parents in a local church’s social room, Lott’s squeaky-clean facade came crashing down.
The 54-year-old educator, youth coach and married father posted a cryptic message on Facebook, reportedly tried to commit suicide, had his home raided by investigators and now faces more than 40 counts connected to allegations he surreptitiously videotaped 22 teenage boys showering at Immaculata High School in Somerville, where he is a volunteer coaching assistant and sports videographer.
Somerset County Prosecutor Geoffrey D. Soriano said today that the investigation to this point is limited to the taping outlined in the complaint. He said investigators haven’t received any other leads, and there have been no allegations that Lott made inappropriate videos of students outside Immaculata — or did anything more severe.
"There’s no kid anywhere who has come forward to say that they were sexually abused, and when I say sexually abused, I mean physical touching," Soriano said.
 |
| A copy photo from a 2011 Bernardsville Middle School yearbook shows Assistant Principal Patrick Lott, right, with Principal Lynn Kratz, center, and the school mascot. Lott is accused of secretly videotaping boys showering in the locker room at Immaculata High School in Somerville, where he volunteered videotaping sporting events. |
Investigators, however, still are sifting through "multiple computer files and digital recordings" taken from Lott’s Somerville home during raids on Dec. 13 and 16. In that library are files of football and basketball games Lott recorded as those teams’ videographer, but found within that G-rated catalog were sinister recordings of boys showering in the school’s communal shower area, investigators said.
"That is not the Pat Lott I know," Howlett said. "I’m shocked, totally shocked."
With these recordings, detectives then located the area where a camera had been secretly installed for video recording, prosecutors said.
In a statement, the Diocese of Metuchen, which oversees the Catholic co-educational school, said Lott was caught when the diocese became aware of "inappropriate behavior" and passed the information to authorities.
The arrest has left the county’s educational, sports and political circles incredulous and rocked the small parochial school.
The school has roughly 800 students and a reputation for a college prep curriculum, excellent student-to-teacher ratios and a sports program that produces Division 1 scholarship athletes. It recently launched a $20 million fundraising drive with the hopes of creating a school on par with top-level private schools such as Bergen Catholic and Delbarton.
But Lott’s arrest — the third sexual incident involving a person connected with Immaculata and its students in two decades — is likely to torpedo those efforts and could bring sweeping changes in administration and sports programs.
Dozens of people who knew Lott, worked with him, entrusted their children to him and voted for him as an unsuccessful political candidate are stunned. The Somerset County community is coming to grips with the realization the Patrick Lott they admired is not the Patrick Lott who appeared at an arraignment Wednesday, unshaven and disheveled in an orange jumpsuit — with a gash across his neck.
Lott is being held on $500,000 bail, and his lawyer, James Wronko, says he is likely to stay there, unable to raise the money to free himself. A jail official says Lott has received medical attention, but would not specify the reason.
One person in the school community and a fellow congregant at the Church of the Immaculate Conception in Somerville told The Star-Ledger that Lott tried to kill himself in recent weeks. Tonight, a person familiar with the case confirmed the account was accurate but said he didn’t have knowledge of the details.
Asked about a possible suicide attempt, the prosecutor said, "Our office will not comment on that topic."
In protective custody, Lott remains the county’s most unlikely defendant.
"He was a role model, a hero," said Paul Gsell, who, as a teenager, worked for Lott’s pool cleaning business in the late 1980s. "I have kids of my own and now I’ll never be able to trust anyone with my kids — no teacher, no coach, no one. Because if Pat Lott is dirty, then there’s no one I can trust."
Gsell saw Lott’s Facebook post, which said, "I have always given my best and tried to be a role model. No one is perfect. Thanks for the memories." Gsell thought it "was a joke" and said he sent a reply: "Coach, I don’t know what you’re thinking of, but you helped a lot of people. You’re the best in my book."
Since 2009, Lott has been the assistant principal at Bernardsville Middle School, where he is known for high-fiving students as they come off the bus. Before that, he was assistant principal at Bernards High School and a teacher at Montgomery High School, where he coached wrestling and basketball teams. His wrestling teams won Skyland Conference Raritan Division titles in 2000 and 2001.
Recently, Lott tried to restart a political career that began in the 1980s as a Watchung school board member and as a county freeholder candidate in 1991. He ran unsuccessfully for the Somerville Borough Council in 2006 and 2007 and narrowly lost again in 2009. He also was chairman of Somerville’s Republican Committee in 2010.
Organizations and facilities — a local YMCA and recreation departments — that were hosts to Lott’s youth basketball camps are combing their files and scanning their memories.
Soriano said his office is interviewing people from all of those camps and programs. While "we think we know everywhere he’s been," Soriano said, he is asking anyone with information to come forward.
"Our investigation is widespread," the prosecutor said.
The investigation is likely to find plenty of second-guessing, if nothing else.
A parent of an Immaculata student who requested anonymity said Lott ran an early-morning weight-lifting and conditioning program that was attended mostly by football players. The father said Lott "encouraged the boys to shower after and was always the last guy out of the locker room."
Gsell recalls finding a "sexual mail-order catalog" in Lott’s pool-cleaning van. The magazine offered "sex toys and clothing for sale," Gsell said, "bondage-type stuff." When Gsell and his older brother, who also worked for Lott, told their father, he demanded they quit.
 |
| A sign outside Bernardsville Middle School that reserves a parking space for Patrick Lott the Vice Principal. Lott was arrested for secretly videotaping boys showering in the locker room at Immaculata High School in Somerville where he volunteered videotaping sporting events. |
"I was, like, 13, so I was giggling," Gsell said. "You could order leather stuff with holes in crazy places. It was absolutely out of left field. When we told my dad, he was, like, ‘You guys aren’t going back to work for him.’?"
But to Gsell, this was just a blip. Lott was still single then.
"No, that didn’t really change my opinion of him," Gsell said. "Aside from that, this guy was impeccable."
Gsell said a middle-school friend, who later became Gsell’s stepson, once bragged, "My mom is dating Coach Lott." The school community watched the romance bloom as Lois Jankowitz came to school each day to pick up her children. A few years later, they were married.
"I was a pretty good judge of character," Gsell said. "Even at that age. Never in a million years would you ever think this guy would be capable of anything like this. Never in a million years."
Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.