LAKEVILLE (CT)
Hartford Courant
February 15, 2018
By Josh Kovner
The Hotchkiss School, one of the exclusive New England preparatory schools grappling with sexual abuse allegations from former students, has dismissed its independent investigator following an outcry from alumni who learned he had represented institutions, including the Norwich diocese, that had been accused in sexual assault cases.
“We’ve switched investigators,” Hellen Hom-Diamond, the Lakeville school’s communication director, said Thursday when asked whether Simsbury lawyer James Sconzo had been relieved of duties he had conducted since June 2016. Sconzo did not immediately return a telephone message Thursday afternoon.
“In June 2016, we retained a third party to conduct an investigation into reports of sexual misconduct by members of the faculty or staff that occurred at any time in the School’s history,” begins a post on the Hotchkiss website.
In new language added to the post on Thursday, the school said, “Based on feedback from the alumni community, we have retained the law firm of Locke Lord to take over the investigation and build upon the considerable work that has been done to date.”
The school said the investigation “will be wholly independent and will conclude with the release of a public report …”
In January, attorney Roderick MacLeish wrote to Craig Bradley, the Hotchkiss head of school, on behalf of a group called Hotchkiss Alumni for Reconciliation and Healing.
MacLeish cited what he said were the factors that should disqualify Sconzo from investigating sexual abuse at the school. MacLeish asked Bradley to remove Sconzo and work with the alumni group “to procure an investigator who will rightly be perceived as independent.”
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