Exclusive: St. Andrew’s kept quiet over student’s molestation report

FLORIDA
The Palm Beach Post

By Andrew Marra – Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Wednesday, Aug. 24, 2016

BOCA RATON — In May 2014, a 15-year-old freshman at St. Andrew’s School went to administrators with an upsetting accusation: A senior boarding student had barged into the girls’ campus dormitory with his friends and, in the middle of a card game, fondled her repeatedly in front of several other students.

But the school never notified police or child-welfare investigators, despite a state law requiring schools to report suspicions of sexual abuse against minors, police records obtained by The Palm Beach Post show.

Instead, the Boca Raton private school conducted its own investigation, which administrators resolved by sending the girl to counseling sessions and writing a stern email to her 18-year-old attacker, who already had graduated and returned to his home in Russia, police records show.

Police were not alerted until more than a month after the incident, when the girl and her mother went to the Boca Raton Police Department to report the incident themselves.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.