POLY Prep Must Provide Names of Current and Cormer Board Members: Judge

By Michael O'Keeffe
New York Daily News
September 6, 2012

http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/iteam/2012/09/poly-prep-must-provide-names-of-current-and-cormer-board-members-judge

A federal judge in Brooklyn has ordered officials at Poly Prep Country Day School to produce the names of current and former members of the board of trustees from 1966 until the present.

United States Magistrate Judge Cheryl Pollak issued the order on Aug. 30, two days after U.S. District Court Judge Frederic Block ruled that he will allow portions of an explosive sex-abuse lawsuit to proceed against the elite private school.

Lawyers for the 12 plaintiffs who claim they were sexually abused by longtime Poly Prep football coach Phil Foglietta had asked the court in June to compel the school to produce the names, last known addresses and dates of service for all current and former members of the board.

The plaintiffs, according to Pollak’s order, said they wanted the information to “ascertain the acts, omissions, and culpability of individual trustees in order to determine how to proceed with plaintiff’s remaining claims.”

Attorneys for Poly Prep asked Pollak to deny the request because the plaintiffs did not indicate whether they named to name each trustee as a defendant or notify the trustees about the lawsuit.

“Defendants contend that the former option would be improper because plaintiffs have not offered factual support for claims against individual trustees and that the latter option would be improper because only parties to an action need to be served with process,” Pollak said in last week’s order.

The lawsuit claims Poly Prep officials knew for decades that Foglietta, who died in 1998, was a sexual predator but put the school's reputation and fund-raising ahead of student safety.

The suit says Poly Prep officials have covered up the abuse since 1966, when administrators threatened to expel a plaintiff named William Jackson who complained that he was molested by Foglietta.

The cover-up, attorneys for the plaintiffs have argued, not only allowed Foglietta to rape and assault students for more than 20 years, but it also prevented his clients from pursuing litigation against the school in a timely fashion.

Poly Prep officials have said that they did not learn about the abuse allegations until 1991, when alumnus David Hiltbrand contacted then-headmaster William M. Williams and told him that he was abused by Foglietta in the 1960s. Former Poly Prep quarterback Douglas Miller said in an affidavit filed with the court earlier this month that Steve Andersen, a former teammate who is now a Poly Prep administrator, told him that school officials may have been aware of the abuse allegations before Hiltbrand came forward.

The sexual abuse scandal has roiled the elite school in the decade after Hiltbrand went public with his allegations in 2002. One of the plaintiffs, Philip Smith, is the brother of Scott Smith, the chairman of Poly Prep's board of directors.