PALM BEACH (FL)
Palm Beach Post
Nov. 5, 2019
Civil lawsuits filed last month have raised allegations of sexual abuse involving a longtime Spanish River High School teacher, three years after Palm Beach County School District police investigated a similar, anonymous complaint.
The suits filed under New York’s Child Protection Act accuse Dianna Vacco of sexually abusing two young students hundreds of times in the early 1980s when she taught fifth- and sixth-grade science at a Catholic school in Angola, a village outside Buffalo.
In their complaints, the two former students claim that the sexual abuse occurred both in New York and Florida when they were between the ages of 10 and 15. Court documents do not detail where in Florida the abuse is alleged to have taken place.
Vacco, 65, who appears to live in St. Augustine after moving from Wellington, could not be reached for comment. Court records do not list an attorney representing her in the civil cases.
Mitchell Garabedian, an attorney who has represented numerous sexual abuse victims in high-profile cases, including cases against the Catholic Archdiocese of Boston, is one of several attorneys representing the two women in the civil suits. Reached by telephone last week, Garabedian declined to comment.
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