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Lawsuits: Woman sexually abused students in NY before teaching in PBC

Palm Beach Post
November 5, 2019

https://bit.ly/2oPEt3D

A longtime Spanish River High School teacher is accused of sexually abusing two students in New York before she moved to Florida in the 1980s.

Civil lawsuits filed last month have raised allegations of sexual abuse involving a longtime Spanish River High School teacher, three years after Palm Beach County School District police investigated a similar, anonymous complaint.

The suits filed under New York’s Child Protection Act accuse Dianna Vacco of sexually abusing two young students hundreds of times in the early 1980s when she taught fifth- and sixth-grade science at a Catholic school in Angola, a village outside Buffalo.

In their complaints, the two former students claim that the sexual abuse occurred both in New York and Florida when they were between the ages of 10 and 15. Court documents do not detail where in Florida the abuse is alleged to have taken place.

Vacco, 65, who appears to live in St. Augustine after moving from Wellington, could not be reached for comment. Court records do not list an attorney representing her in the civil cases.

Mitchell Garabedian, an attorney who has represented numerous sexual abuse victims in high-profile cases, including cases against the Catholic Archdiocese of Boston, is one of several attorneys representing the two women in the civil suits. Reached by telephone last week, Garabedian declined to comment.

Vacco taught at Angola’s now-defunct Most Precious Blood Catholic School between 1976 and 1984, court records show. She spent one year at another New York school before taking a job at Lake Worth’s Sacred Heart Catholic School in 1986, according to Palm Beach County School District records. She worked there until 1999, when she landed a job at Spanish River.

She taught science and theater at the Boca Raton-area high school until her retirement in 2017, school district records show.

Evaluations in Vacco’s school district personnel file characterized her as a well-liked and hardworking teacher who was instrumental in establishing the theater department at the school. The only allegation of misconduct was an anonymous email sent in October 2016 to then-principal William Latson.

In it, “Elena Noname” wrote that Vacco had “extremely inappropriate relationships” with two young girls when she was in western New York. The writer described Vacco as a “child predator” who “mentally, emotionally and sexually abused” the girls.

The email did not mention when the abuse reportedly occurred and did not specify exactly where it is said to have happened. The email writer did not respond to follow-up questions, according to police records.

The email stated that the two girls never reported the abuse in part because Vacco manipulated them, adding that “she is an expert at grooming her targets and targeting the kids who nobody is really paying attention to.”

“Please be aware of who you have in your school,” the email read. “The kids are not safe with her there.”

Vacco spoke in February 2017 with district police about the allegations, saying that she never had sexual contact with any children, though she added that “she did do some stupid things during that time that nowadays would be considered inappropriate,” according to the police report.

Vacco elaborated saying that when she coached girls’ basketball in New York, she would drive the children home. She said that on several occasions, she also had sleepovers with players.

Police could find “no evidence to suggest that Vacco is a sexual predator as indicated in the anonymous complaint.” Latson told officers that he never had received complaints about Vacco, and authorities closed the investigation, ruling it unfounded.

Vacco retired at the end of that school year, records show. The district declined to comment on Vacco.

The email writer mentioned that Vacco reportedly threatened the girls, “obviously ... considering her brother’s job in NY.”

Vacco’s brother is Dennis Vacco, who was the New York State Attorney General between 1994 and 1999. He currently represents a Franciscan order in a decades-old sexual abuse case in which a New York clergyman is accused of abusing a student.

Dennis Vacco has argued in court filings that the case against the Franciscan order should be thrown out because the state’s Child Victims Act, another name for the Protection Act, is unconstitutional, according to a report by The Buffalo News.

Signed into law in February, the act gives victims of childhood sexual abuse in New York one year to bring civil lawsuits against alleged abusers and their employers without being time-barred by the state’s statute of limitations.

Dianna Vacco’s prior employer, the now-defunct Most Precious Blood school, along with Most Precious Blood Catholic Church and the Diocese of Buffalo, are named in the two lawsuits as well. In filings last week, attorneys for the school, the church and the diocese questioned the legality of the Protection Act by arguing that the women waited too long to file the lawsuits.

The attorneys also argued that neither the school, nor the church nor the diocese, knew of any of Vacco’s alleged abuses.




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