Former Episcopal Academy Students Come Forth with Allegations of Sex Abuse Decades Ago

By Mari A. Schaefer
Philadelphia Inquirer
April 26, 2015

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20150426_Former_Episcopal_Academy_students_come_forth_with_allegations_of_sex_abuse_decades_ago.html

The Episcopal Academy student was 13, he said, when teacher Richard Perkins Smith gave him and some classmates pornographic magazines.

Smith watched as the boys, wearing only briefs, became sexually excited and "horsed around" with one another, he said.

"He knew damn well what was going on - and he facilitated it," said the former student.

Now a middle-aged man, the former student is among nearly a dozen Episcopal alumni who say Smith sexually abused them decades ago.

In a letter sent this month to alumni and others, officials at the prestigious Delaware County school disclosed that at least 11 former students had come forward to say they were abused by Smith, an Episcopal teacher from 1970 to 1990 and administrator until 1998.

Now 67, Smith is awaiting trial in Massachusetts on charges of sexually assaulting four boys at a Cape Cod summer camp more than 30 years ago. The Media resident also faces child-pornography charges in Delaware County.

School officials and their lawyers declined last week to discuss the allegations. Chester and Montgomery County prosecutors, who had reviewed the claims, said they closed their investigations in part because the accusations fell outside of the statute of limitations for such crimes.

But the public disclosure of the alleged incidents at Episcopal follows a wave of similar cases at schools in recent years.

Last summer, the Solebury School outside New Hope similarly apologized to its alumni for what it said may have been decades of sexual misconduct or abuse by teachers and staff members. Among the perpetrators, school officials said, was one of Solebury's founders.

A criminal investigation into that case is continuing.

In their letter to the school community, Episcopal officials apologized and said they were "devastated" to learn of the extent of the alleged abuse by Smith and another teacher. They did not identify the second teacher other than to say he taught in the 1960s, is now deceased, and allegedly abused one student.

Smith's alleged misconduct first came to light in 2012. Interviewed by Massachusetts detectives, he acknowledged having abused at least one Episcopal student during his tenure. According to court documents, Smith also told investigators that he had admitted the abuse to the school's headmaster at the time.

James Crawford, who held that post during Smith's tenure, did not return calls last week.

The school then contacted alumni and staff in an effort to identify other potential victims.

The former student who talked to The Inquirer last week said he was among the 11 who came forward. (The Inquirer does not identify victims of child-sex abuse.)

The man said he believes the school was not aware of Smith's actions at the time of his abuse, in 1977. But he said even if he had come forward then, he feared others would have believed the teacher, not him.

"There is real harm here," he said. "This wasn't kids being kids."

For years, the man said, he was ashamed and developed an addiction issue that he will "always have to battle," he said. He has not told his wife.

"I just want to see this guy in jail," he said.

Another alumnus, now 43, told The Inquirer he was first abused by Smith in the fourth grade.

He said he was waiting for his mother to pick him up from school when Smith began rubbing his back and reached into his pants.

The next year, he attended an overnight camping trip dubbed as an "Indian Retreat" where he said Smith and another teacher had the boys dress in loincloths and play games in the woods of Hibernia State Park, near Coatesville, Chester County.

According to the man, Smith invited one boy to sleep in his tent.

"We were not all naive," he said. "We knew something creepy was going on."

The man, now married with children and with a career as an executive in a multinational corporation, said he chose not to contact Episcopal about the abuse even after learning about its investigation. He said he had no desire to keep in touch with the school.

He questioned why Smith was allowed to continue at the school after he had allegedly confessed to an administrator.

"Where were the responsible adults to stop this?" he said.

Such stories are one reason State Rep. Mark Rossi (D., Berks) has been pushing bills that would extend the statute of limitations for action against abusers - measures that have languished in Harrisburg for years.

"We know it takes victims a long time to come forward," said Rossi, a victim of sexual abuse by a Catholic priest.

Advocates say one in four girls and one in six boys will be sexually abused by age 18. "Only one in 10 will ever tell," Rossi said. "Those other nine will suffer in silence their entire life."