Elite Ri Prep School Officials Accused of Decades-long Sex Abuse Cover-up

By Mark Schieldrop
Patch
January 5, 2016

http://patch.com/rhode-island/newport/elite-ri-prep-school-accused-decades-long-sex-abuse-cover-0


Three women who were sexually abused decades ago as teenagers at St. George’s School in Middletown said Tuesday that the elite preparatory school’s administration is still trying to cover-up systemic rape, molestation and victimization of students that occurred there in the 1970s and 1980s.

All three were victimized by now-deceased former athletic director Al Gibbs, who was allowed to retire in 1980 after years of abusing girls. And in recent weeks, more than 40 more victims have come forward to report being abused not just by Gibbs, but a former chaplain, a former musical director and other students as well.

Calling for an outside independent investigation and a major change in how the school is handling sex abuse claims, the victims, Anne Scott (‘80); Katie Wales (‘80); and Joan “Bege” Reynolds (‘79), said at a Boston press conference in the office of their lawyers that the school’s current headmaster has continued a decades-long effort by the school to silence and intimidate victims to avoid a public scandal.

Victims are dissatisfied with the school’s own internal investigation of sexual abuse claims after learning that the investigator appointed by the school was described in an April alumni letter as independent but is actually a partner in the law firm that represents the school. The report also doesn’t address how the school failed to report an overwhelming number of sexual abuse reports from victims over the years to state authorities, including the police and the state Department of Children Youth and Families.

Specifically, the school is accused of violating the state’s mandatory abuse reporting law.

Practically, the victims have been silenced, isolated, and in the case of one boy who said he was raped with a broomstick by an older student, told by an adult figure when he reported it to “grow up” before he was mocked in the school’s yearbook with a picture showing him sitting in a garbage can next to the caption “better than a broomstick!”

“These alumnae do not wish to harm SGS, but to help SGS become a school which values honesty and compassion and which operates in a manner consisted with its mission statement,” the victims said in a lengthy and detailed response to the school’s Dec. 23 report on sex abuse claims.

A lawyer representing the victims, Eric MacLeish, a 1970 graduate of St. George’s School himself, said that the Rhode Island State Police is actively investigating multiple claims of sex abuse including rape and molestation by former school employees and students. In Rhode Island, there is no statute of limitations for rape and failing to report possible sex abuse of a child is a punishable crime.