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Staten Island man, 72, files Child Victims Act suit over alleged 1960s abuse by Poly Prep teachers
By Larry Mcshane
For Brooklyn Poly Prep County Day School alum Richard Rubin, the typical 3 Rs of education came with a fourth: Rape. Rubin, now a genteel 72-year-old Staten Island resident, alleges in a newly-filed Child Victims Act lawsuit that he was sexually abused on a weekly basis between 1960-65 by a cabal of five predatory teachers at the prestigious school. Rubin was even taken to the apartment of the most aggressive instructor for one-on-one assaults, according to court papers. “It would be really nice to kick Poly in the teeth and let them take notice of what went on,” Rubin told the Daily News after the Brooklyn Supreme Court suit was filed. “If not for the money, Poly might not take any notice. The headmaster, the dean of boys, the athletics department— they basically all let this go on. "It was a horrible time.” His attorney David Oddo, after vetting the incredible tale of long-running abuse, said Poly operated more like a ’70s bathhouse than a college preparatory school. The predatory quintet “anally raped and viciously sexually assaulted the plaintiff on a weekly basis ... on school premises, including but not limited to the locker room, classrooms and under the stairwells,” the lawsuit alleged. Rubin opted to file his suit under his own name rather than the join the vast majority of Child Victims Act plaintiffs who went to court as John and Jane Does. “Why should I hide as a victim?” he asked. “I think the people who did all this are the ones who should be hiding, not me.” The depth of the debauchery ran completely out of control, according to the lawsuit. The five teachers involved would conspire to pick out students deemed “receptive targets” for the sexual abuse, with attacks occurring as often as three times in a single week.“Recently, we learned that an alumnus has come forward with legal action against Poly Prep, citing sexual abuse in the early 1960s. Because this is a legal matter, we cannot share more details, but know we care deeply about our alumni, and remain committed to them,” Poly Prep’s Head of School, Audrius Barzdukas wrote in a letter to the school community.Rubin recalled his Latin teacher, one of the alleged predator pedophiles, teaching a class where he explained how young boys in the Roman Empire were used as prostitutes and discarded. “They tried to make it all normal, if you will,” he explained. “The whole story hasn’t come out. These five teachers all reported to the same higher-ups.” Last November, a former Poly Prep high school football star filed a lawsuit alleging that he was kissed, groped and rubbed by a predatory Episcopal priest in the mid-1970s. A month later, another suit by a female student charged that she was forced to perform oral sex on her male tennis coach in the 1980s. “It seems like Poly hasn’t learned its lesson,” said Rubin.
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