New Hampshire Will Investigate St. Paul’s School Over Sex Abuse

By Jess Bidgood
New York Times
July 14, 2017

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/14/us/prep-school-abuse-investigation-stpauls.html?_r=0

BOSTON — The attorney general of New Hampshire on Thursday announced a criminal investigation into St. Paul’s School, an exclusive boarding school that has been embroiled in a series of damaging reports over sexual misconduct and abuse on campus.

Gordon J. MacDonald, the attorney general, said the investigation would focus at first on whether the school endangered child welfare or committed obstruction of governmental operations. In announcing the investigation, Mr. MacDonald cited several reports related to St. Paul’s over a matter of years, including an investigation released earlier this year into sexual abuse committed by teachers decades ago, stories about a sexual ritual among some students that figured into the rape trial of a former student in 2015, and a new report about another such sexual contest this year.

“Protection of children is a paramount priority for law enforcement,” Mr. MacDonald said in a written statement.

Reports of sexual abuse at boarding schools have accumulated at revered campuses such as Choate Rosemary Hall in Connecticut, St. George’s School in Rhode Island and Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire. And in some cases, teachers involved have been prosecuted individually.

But it is exceedingly unusual for the authorities to subject an entire private school, as an institution, to a criminal investigation, according to Paul Mones, a Los Angeles-based lawyer who has sued institutions on behalf of abuse victims.

“This is a groundbreaking announcement,” Mr. Mones said. “I think it’s going to be a warning shot across the bow of private schools and other institutions.”

The rector of St. Paul’s School, Mike Hirschfeld, said that the school has been in contact with the authorities about the “recent incidents of concern” and that it intends to answer any questions Mr. MacDonald has about the investigation commissioned by the school to examine reports of sexual abuse by teachers. The school’s goal, Mr. Hirschfeld said, is the “health, safety and well-being” of students.

“We will work tirelessly to meet that goal and strengthen the public’s faith in St. Paul’s School,” the rector said in a statement.

The announcement of the investigation follows a tumultuous period at the school in Concord, N.H., which boasts prominent alumni such as John Kerry, the former senator and secretary of state, and Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island.

In 2015, a former student, Owen Labrie, was convicted of misdemeanor sexual assault charges and a felony computer charge related to a sexual encounter he had with a 15-year-old girl while he was a senior at St. Paul’s. The trial revealed a culture of conquest among some boys at school, who took part in a so-called “senior salute,” in which seniors and younger students had sexual encounters before the older students graduated.

In May, the school released a sweeping report that substantiated claims of sexual abuse or misconduct by more than a dozen teachers against students there between the 1940s and the 1980s and said that an earlier investigation prompted by alumni there in 2000 had fallen far short of publicly uncovering the school’s problems.

Last month, The Concord Monitor reported that the school was investigating students who were keeping track of relationships on a crown from a fast-food restaurant and that the local police were investigating a report of sexual assault at the school.

The most recent report was the “straw that broke the camel’s back,” said Chuck Douglas, a lawyer and a former New Hampshire congressman, as well as a friend of Mr. MacDonald, the attorney general. Mr. Douglas is one of the lawyers representing the family of Chessy Prout — who was sexually assaulted by Mr. Labrie — in a civil claim against the school.

Mr. MacDonald could not be reached for comment late on Thursday, but a spokesman for his office confirmed that it was opening the investigation.

Statutes of limitation will complicate any potential prosecutions connected to cases that date back decades, experts said. But Mr. Mones said that older events could potentially be used to show a “pattern and practice over decades of covering up sexual abuse and not protecting students.”

News of the investigation spread quickly among St. Paul’s alumni Thursday night.

Ms. Prout said she hopes the investigation helps lead to “major changes.” The school’s leadership has “been more focused on saving face than protecting students,” she said.