RHODE ISLAND
Boston Globe
By Bella English GLOBE STAFF SEPTEMBER 01, 2016
After a months-long investigation of sexual abuse at St. George’s School, a report released Thursday described the elite Rhode Island prep school in the 1970s and 80s as a cauldron of sexual exploitation of students. Sixty-one alumni gave investigators first-hand accounts of the abuse they say they suffered, with 51 saying the abusers were faculty or staff and an additional 10 reporting abuse by classmates.
“The picture that emerges from this investigation is profoundly disturbing,” wrote attorney Martin F. Murphy in a preface to the 390-page report. Murphy, a partner at the Boston firm Foley Hoag, was appointed in January by St. George’s and the victims’ group SGS for Healing to investigate sex abuse at the elite prep school in Middletown, R.I.
For many of the alumni interviewed by Murphy’s team, the school was a place “where their abusers created a kind of private hell for them, a place where they suffered emotional wounds and trauma that for many remain unhealed,” according to the report.
In August, the school agreed to a financial settlement for 29 alumni. In June, under fire from alumni who felt he had not been responsive to the burgeoning sex scandal, headmaster Eric Peterson announced that he would not seek to renew his contract when it expires at the end of this school year.
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