Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Look What I Found in the Globe's Beverly Handbag

Beverly woman returns bag containing $11,000

“It was a Vera Bradley bag, and it was nice.”

I would think the same if I found 11 grand in a handbag. 

Look at what else was in it:

"Scandal grows at Beverly school" by Walter V. Robinson and Katherine Landergan  |  Globe Correspondents, January 11, 2013

Five months after allegations of sexual abuse surfaced at the Landmark School in Beverly, the private school disclosed Thursday that five more graduates have lodged sexual molestation complaints against two former teachers and a former staff member.

In a statement posted on the school’s website and e-mailed to more than 4,000 graduates and parents, headmaster Robert J. Broudo said the alleged abuse ­occurred in the 1970s and 1980s and that the three former employees had long since left the school. Broudo also said there have been no further allegations against a former dean, Howard Kasper, since two graduates told the Globe in July that Kasper had groped them when they were students at the boarding school.

Related: Penn State Sex Abuse Scandal Inspired Phone Call

That damn Sandusky!

In an accompanying report from the school’s board of trustees, the school acknowledged that the fresh allegations involve two former teachers for whom the school had already settled past sexual abuse lawsuits involving other victims, one in 2005 and the other in 1991. It said that Landmark has reported the allegations to law enforcement.

In both lawsuits, the report said, the courts had impounded the files, meaning there is no public evidence of the existence of the lawsuits. In at least one case, in 2005, according to an impounded file the Globe obtained, Broudo himself beseeched the court to seal the records, arguing that public notice about the allegations would cause “irreparable harm’’ to the school’s reputation, endanger its ability to attract students, and even threaten the school’s very survival....

Like many other institutions, Landmark has been ­reluctant to publicly disclose alle­gations of sexual abuse....

David Clohessy, the national director of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, said Thursday that the 2005 affidavit suggests that the school “was more interested in protecting its reputation than protecting its students.’’

Impounding sexual abuse lawsuits, Clohessy said, “is the best favor a judge can do for a predator, who can move on to a new job in a new place and be surrounded by unsuspecting children.’’

--more--"

Also see: Tip on fugitive couple leads to wrong pair 

Ooops, wrong Beverly.