SANTA BARBARA (CA)
Newsmakers
May 23, 2019
By Jerry Roberts
A nationally prominent law firm that represents victims of sexual abuse confirmed on Wednesday they have been contracted in connection with allegations of improper conduct by leaders of Santa Barbara High School’s Multimedia Arts & Design Academy.
“We have been retained,” attorney Stu Mollrich told Newsmakers, speaking for the Irvine-based firm of Manly, Stewart and Finaldi. “We have not yet filed an action.”
Their entry into the local controversy now swirling around the acclaimed MAD Academy raises the stakes in the affair, which escalated last week,when parents of a former student publicly accused Pablo Sweeney, the program’s ousted operations director, of sexual “predation” towards their son, as another parent released a social media video showing Dan Williams, the soon-to-be-retired longtime director, partying with students.
In public comments to the school board, the parents charged that Santa Barbara Unified School District officials turned a blind eye to improprieties and failed to report them as required to law enforcement or child welfare agencies.
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