V. Appendices

 

1) Timeline Of Reports And Accounts Of Sexual Abuse At Horace Mann, 1960 To 2010
2) Reports Of Abuse Received By Administrators At Horace Mann, By Decade
3) Horace Mann Files And Records: The Burning Question
4) Analysis Of Abuse Victims By Gender And Decade
5) Letters From Survivor Group To Horace Mann School
6) Letters From Horace Mann School To The Community
7) Statement By Bronx District Attorney
8) HMAC Reply To Statement By Bronx District Attorney
9) Statements Of Horace Mann Survivors At Press Conference
10) Selected Articles On Sexual Abuse At Horace Mann

 

Appendix 1

Appendix 2
Reports of Abuse Received by Administrators at Horace Mann, By Decade
Provided by survivors, classmates, teachers and parents:

Pre-1970

• A survivor, “zz,” a musician, reported his abuse by Somary to Bill Clinton in 1969-70. He was told “It’s normal. Do nothing, take no action.”[1]

 

1970 – 1979

• A student reported Somary’s abuse of another student to Allison in 1970. Reported by Mark Finkel, survivors’ page:  “…Doug did tell me that he had gone to Mr. Allison (Head of the Lower School) to report an incident he had learned of involving Mr. Somary and a fellow student. This would have been around 1970. He gave Mr. Allison a specific, very graphic report. Doug told me how upset he was by the story. Mr. Allison pooh-poohed it and told Doug not to worry about such ridiculous stories. Even when he told me this story some five year later, Doug was visibly shaken by the lack of validation.” [2]
• Fife reported Berman to Lewerth in 1970 (no action taken). “Shortly after this attack, I told the Assistant Dean of the Upper School – Philip Lewerth – about my trips to Mr. Berman’s apartment. I told him about the incident in the DC hotel room and that Berman had tried to have sex with me. Mr. Lewerth asked if I had any proof. I told him I didn’t, that Mr. Berman had been very careful not to send any notes. Mr. Lewerth then said that nothing could or would be done. He told me that William Clinton – the head of HM’s upper school – was a great believer in Berman’s brilliance. Lewerth also warned that Berman could sue me for libel if I brought formal charges. And that this could severely impair my chances to get into a good college. So I said nothing else, not even to my parents.”[3]
• When Wright was a student, he was seen by Clinton having sex with another student. Wright was nonetheless subsequently hired as an art teacher and a football coach who performed inspection exams on his football players. Clinton knew about Wright.  (June 30, 2012.  Also, Clinton admitted in his 1996 meeting with Steve Fife that he was aware that Wright abused a student when Wright was a student.)[4]
• In the second letter from the Survivor group illustrating a response by authority to a report of abuse: “In one case a student who was being sexually abused was asked to meet with the Guidance Department Chairman, only to be sexually abused by that Chairman and then to have that Chairman take retaliatory action against the victim in the classroom.”[5]
• A letter from a teacher mentions two reports to school administration: 1)  A sit down with school heads after a parent complaint on a teacher NOT in the New York Times article, no action taken; 2)  A teacher takes a complaint on Somary to the Guidance office, no action taken.[6]
• “I was on Varsity football when, one day, Mark Wright scheduled an “exam” for me in the weight room. He performed a testicular exam on me. It lasted 30 seconds or so. I was NOT traumatized. I heard shortly thereafter he intended to examine the JV team, of which my younger brother was a member. I could not accept that. I did what I felt compelled to do. I contacted Asst. Coach Ron Lombardi who, in turn, contacted the administration. Wright was gone the next day. No one knew why–just that he was gone.  I was somewhat concerned for my safety given that Wright was about 3 times larger than me. (For those who did not know him, he played Pro football for a brief period.)”  – June 10, 2012[7]
• Wright was fired only after a 4th report of abuse (or more). There was no report to the DA, parents or students;  No search or counseling of victims.  No investigation, nor on any of the 3 prior reports. (see Dick Warren’s comment below).  Also, the inaction to Kops was similar.[8]
• Richard A. Warren – on reporting: “One especially vulnerable kid came to me and told me about Mark Wright, the art teacher-athlete, making a sexual advance. I went to the head of the school division, a good friend, and reported it. He suggested we go to Clark, which I did and reported the incident.  Wright, who should have been investigated and dismissed at once, left at the end of the year.  I had no idea I was reporting to someone who had every reason to suppress all such goings on.”  July 19, 2012 at 7:04am[9]
• Richard A. Warren – on Clark’s awareness after he reported Wright: “There may have been reports other than mine. I remember Clark’s first reaction was to say he wanted to protect Wright — nothing about damaging children. So I agree completely with you that the administration was aware of the rot; awareness of how deep it went is another thing. But if he and Kops were so blatantly stupid that they could answer Clark’s door together at night dressed only in towels, as a now reporter/ex-student told me, then we are into a whole new realm of blinkered self-awareness.”[10]
• A survivor abused by Wright reported that abuse to Newcombe (then a division head, and later a headmaster). Wright left the next day. This is not the account to which Dick Warren referred above.  The victim said, regarding any response from the school:  He was not told anything afterwards by Newcombe or anyone at HM.  No documenting of the account, no questions, no contact at all.  No counseling to him or other victims, no alert to parents or students or teachers.  No call to police or the DA he knew of.[11]

 

1980 – 1989

• Repeated abuse by Somary was reported first-hand by a student and to 6 administrators (Clinton, Clark, an official and board members) in 1981 or so. The abuse was circa 1973 and ongoing.  Two people have confirmed the account.[12]
• A survivor reported his problem with Tek Lin to Mr. Somary (himself an abuser), who then spoke with Lin but not, apparently, with the HM administration.[13]
• Berman was taking a boy out of the country on a grand tour of Europe without his parents knowledge — alone, just the boy and Berman. The boy’s father, apparently prominent, intervened and Berman was asked to leave.  “I know that he, Berman was scared, based on first-hand knowledge from the bond trader who purchased his new home in Tuxedo and because Robert Simon’s sister was asked to buy Berman and Simon’s adjoining apartments on 72nd street. They were in a rush to leave NY.”  (Early 80’s)[14]
• A alumnus reports his near-miss with Kops in 198?. His mother worked at the school for more than 20 years.
  “Kops almost got me. I’ll never forget it…..My friend’s older brother used to say “Beware of Stan the Man.”  I said it once in the locker room and he came in from the showers. Pulled me into the showers and I got away. I punched him 5 or 6 times.  She knew things because she always told me to stay away from certain people including Clark and Somary….CREEPS as she called them..  I don’t remember who it was I emailed my story and they said they would get back to me. I guess since it was nothing of “sexual” abuse they put it in the file….I never heard back from them.  I was also FORBIDDEN to go to the Theater…. My Mother flipped one time when I came through the cafeteria to the library, Somary had something to do with it I guess. Him and Barry Sielbert… I’m sure my Mother did something about it…. I was a 12 year old kid so I didn’t know the details…. I’m going to look up the email to see who I sent it too.”[15]
• Dorr incident with Kops: student reports, Kops leaves, no search for victims, no counseling, no alert to parents.[16]
• Report of a faculty member: “Like [athlete] before me and [athlete] before him and [athlete] before him… she had to have one football player each year.” – (by an alumnus)[17]
• A student reports abuse by faculty member to Slaybaugh, who took it to Newcombe.[18]
• Newcombe received at least 3 reports, according to a source.[19]
• Charles Balter on reports of Somary: “It turns out people have been complaining since 1969, like all the time, pretty much every year in between,” said Charles Balter.  (Riverdale Press, 2013)[20]
• Gloria Batkin Kahn was the HM school psychologist while abuse was going on. She told a survivor that she tried to report abuse to Clark and was shut down.  She told an ex-teacher she reported abuse to Bill Clinton, who spoke with Somary and Clark, though nothing was done.  Kahn said she would speak with authorities but she wants to be subpoenaed (the Bronx DA has been told about this).  [21]

 

1990 – 1999

• A survivor calls R. Inslee Clark, then president of the school, to report his abuse by Mark Wright. Clark wishes him well and hangs up.[22]
• A survivor on July 9, 2012 said: “I also reported my abuse to Mr. Foote and my parents met with him and were dissatisfied with his response. Apparently at that time not much was done about abuse.”  (A teacher confirms the report).[23]
• Blagden went on to teach at the Isidore Newman School in New Orleans despite reports to Guidance and the headmaster.[24]
• The letter from Ben Balter and subsequent trustee meeting with Dr. Howard: “Phil Foote, then Horace Mann’s headmaster…said: ‘All the administration and trustees got together and decided they wouldn’t do anything about it. People came out of the woodwork protecting Somary.'”
  – Amos Kamil, New York Times Magazine, June 6, 2012[25]
• “The thing that gets me is that stuff had been going on that the school knew about well before 1993. So, when, the school told my family that they had never heard a negative word about Somary, that Somary’s reputation was spotless, that was clearly a lie. Then, they let this guy teach there for another nine or ten years. I’m not going to go into detail, but I’m fairly certain that students continued to be sexually abused at HM after 1993. There were likely more victims of Johannes Somary.” – Charles Balter[26]
• Mullady told Steve Fife when he returned and reported his abuse by Berman “..to bury it.” Clinton did as well.  (’96)[27]
• Steve Fife wrote: “Clinton admitted that there had been many complaints against Berman over the years.”[28]
• Faculty member fired in 1998, reported to the head of the upper division, Dr. Larry Weiss and Mullady: “A friend of mine had been writing everything down that he was saying in class and had forwarded the journal to her mother whom at the time was the general counsel for <a national organization> and she filed a complaint as well.”[29]
• A survivor reported her abuse by Somary to Mullady, who urged her to” keep it quiet, not hurt herself or the school…”[30]

 

2000 – 2010

• “As part of my healing process in 2005, I sought to confront my abuser and Horace Mann. Robert Berman refused to meet with me, first when I wrote to him and next when I traveled to his home and was turned away by a young man who communicated with him. I met with the Chair, Robert Katz, and Vice Chair of the Horace Mann Board of Trustees, Peter Sloane, with my attorney and told them my story. They told me that “it was not Horace Mann’s bill to pay.” – as posted by an alumnus on behalf of “a survivor”.[31]
• “I met with the two of them at Peter Sloane’s law office and I was represented by an attorney. I was told that HM had no records because they were destroyed in a fire and they had no knowledge of Robert Berman’s abuse. If I had more information I was invited to share it with them.”[32]
• A survivor reported prior abuse to Tom Kelly during his transition as headmaster from Mullady.[33]

 

2010 –

• Two survivors separately reported abuse by Somary to Tom Kelly in the spring of 2011.[34]
• 32 survivors report abuse accounts to the Bronx DA (2012), and to Horace Mann (as part of settlement discussions, 2013).

 

 

Appendix 3
Horace Mann Files & Records: The Burning Question
How cover up and institutional betrayal perpetuate sexual abuse.

There is no easy way to talk openly about sexual abuse and the response. Healing requires the truth in the open and the Horace Mann board remains unable to say that it is interested in knowing what happened and that it wants to help. How one school hides the truth is a lesson for every school and all parents expecting their children to be safe.

Over the last 20 years, administrators at Horace Mann have claimed that they have few records pertaining to sexual abuse, saying that any reports were never centralized or not even written down.

One headmaster said there were no records of known reports, not seeming to grasp that the lack of written reports is itself an indictment, since we know that students complained to school authorities. In other words, the administrators who should have recorded all complaints instead dismissed them. “There are no documents that an investigation would turn up.” [1]  Knowledge and awareness, however, are not so easily lost, along with the obligation to act and speak out.

Now that the scope of abuse has been revealed to include 62 victims of 22 abusers over decades, it’s beyond incredible that Horace Mann would have no record of the largest concentration of child sexual abuse ever in one school — particularly one of the most prestigious private prep schools in America. Concerned alumni who gathered to understand what happened have learned as well of more than 25 reports of abuse the school received and buried over thirty years. [2]

To counter doubts, the school has repeated publicly and officially that an “attic fire” at HM’s business office destroyed any or all records pertaining to abuse — not just as hearsay:

As for questions about Wright or the other teachers I heard about in the course of my reporting, the school issued a blanket statement, saying: “The article contains allegations dating back, in some instances, 30 years, long before the current administration took office, which makes it difficult to accurately respond to the factual allegations therein. In addition, on June 13, 1984, there was a fire in the attic of the business office that destroyed some records.

– Amos Kamil, Prep School Predators, New York Times Magazine, June 6th, 2012

Marc Fisher wrote in his article in the New Yorker magazine, “The Master”:

Berman left the school in 1979. Horace Mann says that it has no records of his departure, because files pertaining to Berman and other faculty members were destroyed in a fire, in 1984.

Even the board of trustees, the school’s ultimate authority, presented the loss of records by fire as fact.  And they added a surprising new layer — not knowing about one abuser at all. HM authorities recently told this “no records and no knowledge” tale to a survivor of sexual abuse who bared his most private pain to report what he knew to people he trusted.

When “Gene” decided to report Robert Berman’s abuse to Horace Mann, he met with Robert Katz, then chairman of the board of trustees and Peter Sloane, vice-chair in 2005.

In the meeting, they offered the excuse of no records due to fire. From Gene:

I met with the two of them at Peter Sloane’s law office and I was represented by an attorney. I was told that HM had no records because they were destroyed in a fire and they had no knowledge of Robert Berman’s abuse. If I had more information I was invited to share it with them.[3]

So not only did the chairman of the board say records were allegedly destroyed, but any knowledge or recall by those who wrote or read them sounds like it went up in smoke as well. Hold on a moment — if the school had no knowledge of Berman’s abuse, how did they know that the damaged records concerned that same abuse?

The last part, as they asked what information Gene had, is an oddly loaded question, testing how strong his hand was and with whom else he spoke. Gene believed what they told him. He trusted them.

We now know abuse files and records do exist and that they were not damaged by fire. What Gene was told and what HM authorities told others was untrue — both about the records and about who knew what when.

From Gene, June 13, 2013 (to the author):

Peter,

Robert Katz brought up the “fire” at our meeting sort of as a catch all explanation why he was unable to respond to my question if others besides me had disclosed abuse at HM. His next move was to explain that HM had no legal responsibility i.e. no notice, no duty. If there were no records in the attic then < Robert Katz > was lying to me, which is wrong. A lie implies guilt and knowledge.

Gene[4]

Gene may get to meet with Robert Katz, just the two of them. I hope that happens. Between the two it’s still possible to find some healing. The school could do the same, meeting with the alumni they have avoided and speaking with the candor that has been missing for so long.

* * *

Around the time much of the sexual abuse was going on, lightning struck HM and started a fire in a building just off campus at the business office on the southeast corner of Tibbett Ave and 246th, across the street from the main campus, June 13th, 1984.

The account in the local paper from the June 21, 1984 edition, the Riverdale Press:

Fire damages Horace Mann offices (no byline)

Lightning struck an administration building of the Horace Mann School during a freak thunderstorm last Thursday afternoon, setting the attic level of the three-story brick building on fire. The building, at W. 246 St. and Tibbett Ave., housed the school’s business offices.

We didn’t know it was burning. Someone told us,” said Susan Fraleigh. She and co-worker Hilda Sternberg, bookkeepers at the school, heard the lightning hit at about 4:15 in the afternoon. “We knew it was close,” said Ms. Sternberg. “And they just installed my air conditioner an hour ago,” lamented Ms. Fraleigh.

The fire gutted the top level of the building, where the school’s alumni and development office is located. After firefighters doused the one alarm blaze workers started carrying out boxes of sodden records from the school’s Centennial Fund drive.

It took nearly 20 minutes for the fire trucks to arrive, witnesses said. The local ladder and engine companies at the Riverdale Firehouse, just down the street from the building, had been called to the Century, 2600 Netherland Ave., where lightning had struck minutes earlier.

Lightning had apparently dislodged brick from the face of the building, explained one of the firemen from the Riverdale Firehouse. They fell onto the roof of the Century Racquet Club, a large inflated dome. The local firefighters were instructed to stay on the scene to check for structural damage, and it took some time for companies from outlying areas to respond to the Horace Mann call.

Lightning from the same storm also felled a tree at the Van Cortlandt Mansion.[5]

Two bookkeepers confirmed the damaged files as alumni fund-raising records.

Dottie Conigliaro was editor of the HM alumni magazine in the 80s and 90s. Marc Fisher asked her about the fire. She remembers it well and was the person designated by the school to give the details to the Riverdale Press at the time.

She is certain that no teacher records were kept in that building. Here’s her reply to Marc:

Re: the fire in the Alumni House. It was actually in the same building as the Business Office, and I was there when it happened. In fact, someone from the Riverdale Press interviewed me at the scene and I told them that all fundraising and old alumni records were up there. I’m sure there were no teachers’ records.[6]

So the contemporary record shows that two book keepers quoted in the Riverdale Press said it was “records from the school’s Centennial Fund drive” that were damaged.  Dottie Conigliaro independently confirms the damaged files were “fundraising and old alumni records,” not teacher records related to abuse.

Yes, there was a fire that damaged fundraising records. No, it didn’t damage teacher records or witness memories.  So when and why did the administration decide that records of abuse were gone?

* * *

Several authors have explored the fire and files question and one saw the actual files. Marc Fisher, class of 1976 and a senior editor with the Washington Post said “I put in some effort on the fire question, but…  it’s hard to prove a negative, after all.”  About the actual teacher records, he wrote:

Larry Lowenstein, who ran the office that had custody of all historical records at the school, told me that there was no fire. In addition, two teachers who were there at the time said there was no fire. And most important, the school’s version—that the fire took place at the Alumni House across the street from the main campus—is irrelevant, since the personnel records were actually kept in that time period in a room in the basement of Tillinghast Hall. I know this because I visited the school that same year to check student records for a reporting project I was working on, and Dan Alexander took me down to the file room and gave me the files I was looking for. There were four metal file cabinets, the complete archive of student – and faculty – records, and Dan said at the time that this was the extent of the school’s archive (but for some notable items that were kept in the library.)  — (to the author, 2013)[7]

Why the story of the fire, no records, no files, and no knowledge?

• HM received more than 25 reports of sexual abuse and did not act (list available [8]).
• HM ignored, buried or stalled reports. The administration intimidated those reporting.
• HM misled later victims, obstructed timely alerts to legal authorities, and never contacted the DA or police.

Knowing makes an obligation to act – the cover up began and continued.

It was in force in 1993, when Ben Balter’s mother was misled and pressured.  Ben later committed suicide.

In the Balter meeting, with trustees and administrators, the mother was told she needed video and that Somary could sue (Michael Hess was general counsel at the time).

Mr. Hess was on the Horace Mann Board of Trustees in 1993, when Benjamin Balter, in a letter to the administration, reported that art department chair Johannes Somary had made inappropriate advances toward him.

Mr. Hess, then acting as an attorney for the school, convened a conference with several trustees and Mr. Balter’s mother, a teacher at the school, in which he told her the school wouldn’t investigate the allegations without recorded evidence of impropriety, according to Benjamin’s brother, Charles Balter.

(Riverdale Press[9])

“Somary’s denial was so vehement,” < then headmaster > Foote told The New York Times last year, that “a lot of people put off doing anything about it.”  Foote also said that “all the administration and the trustees” held a meeting and decided nothing needed to be done. In the article, he named Hess as one of those present.

(New York Daily News, http://www.nydailynews.com/exclusive-horace-mann-trustee-booted-sex-scandal-article-1.1342188)

In 2013, Hess said he was not involved in the discussions with Ben Balter or his family in 1993.

The Board made a horrible decision, as the abuser continued to harm a ’96 victim next.[10]

When the board chairman told Gene in 2005 “HM had no records because they were destroyed in a fire and they had no knowledge of Robert Berman’s abuse,” there had been at least six reports of abuse by Berman prior to that 2005 meeting:

• Steve Fife reported to Phillip Lewerth (then Assistant Dean of the Upper School), twice
• A survivor reported to Eileen Mullady, headmaster
• Reports to Bill Clinton, former head of guidance, who admitted knowing and covering up
• The family of a student who later committed suicide reported to the school
• Parents reported to the Parents association, based on students dressing like Berman and complaints of odd behavior

We know records exist for several reasons:

1.  [A teacher] saw a “thick, fat file” on abuse by Somary[11]

2.  Marc Fisher’s New Yorker article: “Gene spoke to a retired administrator, who told him that there had been a file, passed from headmaster to headmaster, with complaints of transgressions by teachers. A spokesman for Horace Mann says that Kelly searched for such a file and found nothing. Still, Gene insists, “people knew. They knew and they did nothing.”
“From the nineteen-sixties into the nineteen-nineties, students, parents, and teachers—each believing his story of abuse to be unique—brought complaints about teachers to Horace Mann’s administrators and board members.”

3.  Tom Kelly found Ben Balter’s letter of 1993 reporting abuse by Somary. Even if it had been “misfiled,” that means there are files. [12]

4.  After June, 2012, Tom Kelly reviewed a file and then met with a male victim affiliated with HM who had sex with a female coach when he was a student [13]

5.  HM received at least 25 reports of abuse for which we have accounts from 1970 to 2011.[14]

In 2005, how could the chairman of the board say the school didn’t know?

Who told Robert Katz there were no records?

Who had the fiduciary obligation to know the facts?

Did HM authorities tell other victims who reported abuse they were the first and only one reporting?

How did misleading those who came forward to report abuse interfere with alerting the DA or the police?

Did misleading those who came forward stall the filing of timely reports within New York’s tight statute of limitations?

…and what did Horace Mann tell the District Attorney in 2012?

This is why an independent investigation is vital to understand why and how the abuse continued for so long. If we understand – if other schools understand — no one needs to be at the mercy of silence. When reputation trumps child safety, the silence of authorities enables abusers to continue as each report gets buried. It can happen at almost any school. The cover up is poison as teachers get referrals to other schools, parents are in the dark and students are at risk. The justice system we think of as protecting children is a monument to loopholes in private schools. It is up to institutions rather than the victims to speak openly, however awkward or painful.

Who Knew What When?

Peter Brooks, HM ’66

 

 

Appendix 4
Analysis of Abuse Victims by Gender and Decade

The impression that the abuse at HM was almost exclusively male-boy is incorrect, probably a result of the early emerging accounts. Overall, a third of all accounts known so far involve girl victims or female abusers, with women-as-abusers as frequent as girls were a victim of abuse by a male.

Once the school was co-ed in the early 70’s, the change in abuse was female abusers, in addition to the male-girl abuse. The surprise is the rise of female abusers. By the 80’s, three quarters of all accounts involved female abusers or girl victims (vs. 17% ten years earlier).

Abuser	Victim	Overall	60s (not coed)	70s	80s	90s
Male	Boy	65%	100%	83%	25%	33%
Male	Girl	18%	5%	45%	33%	33%
Female	Boy	18%	12%	30%	33%	33%
Female	Girl	0%	–	–	–	–
Female victims or abusers:		35%	–	17%	75%	67%

 

Mix of abuse in the 80’s and 90’s when fully coed:

Male,abuse of girls	42%
Female,abuse of boys	31%
Male,abuse of boys	27%

 

Appendices 5A – 5D
Letters from Survivor Group to the Horace Mann School

Appendix 5A
Original Survivors’ Letter

June 21, 2012

To:  Dr. Kelly, the Board of Trustees,
and our many beloved friends in the Horace Mann community

From:  A group of survivors of sexual abuse by Horace Mann teachers and staff

We have been deeply moved by the outpouring of love, concern and solidarity expressed by many in our community since the publication of the New York Times Magazine article about sexual abuse at Horace Mann. We wish to express our thanks to all who have expressed compassion and caring toward us. We have tried not to be hurt by certain comments others have made on the internet seeking to blame the victims or to call our integrity, our motives or even our sexuality into question.

We recognize that many of our fellow-alumni who were not themselves sexually abused, and who were unaware of abuse, have also experienced trauma these last days as you have read just a small part of what was done to us. We recognize that you too are suffering at this time, and we feel that you and we are part of the same community. We are particularly sensitive to those who had no idea that abuse was taking place, and who may have loved and admired the teachers who abused us. We know it must be painful for you to read our stories about the darker side of mentors you admired.

Many people – in Facebook groups, in email conversations, on blogs, etc. – have been suggesting in public and in private what they think we, the survivors of abuse, might want to see happen in the days and weeks ahead. We thought it might serve the community for us to give you an idea of what we ourselves might like to see.

We wish to be clear that this letter is an early draft of a “working document.” We are still in the process of sorting out our own thoughts, and those thoughts are evolving. Additionally, other survivors are contacting us daily, and not all have been able to contribute to this draft. We are in contact with more than twenty survivors so far, and we were able to request input on this letter from eighteen of them, and this document represents our best effort to reflect the concerns that those people have shared with us. Thus, we may revise this document in the coming weeks.

We believe the Horace Mann community has an historic opportunity to show leadership on this issue – to set an example of the right way to handle a crisis of this kind in order to promote healing, reconciliation, justice and truth. We welcome a dialogue with the current Horace Mann administration and Trustees on how to realize these goals.

We believe work must be done in four areas: 1) protecting potential future victims, 2) ensuring “never again” at Horace Mann, 3) healing and assisting past victims based on their legitimate needs, and 4) changing the wider system.

Protecting Potential Future Victims

The New York Times article named three teachers who have all died. Our abusers include several other teachers, some of whom are still alive. We are concerned that these pedophiles may even now be “grooming” other children for similar abuse. Some of you have asked why we did not come forward sooner about this. Several of us did come forward in the past, reporting abuse to the Horace Mann administration and Trustees and/or reporting it to law enforcement, but often we felt our reports fell on deaf ears. Others of us suffered alone for many years, overcome by shame and unable to come forward, not knowing there were others like us. It has taken decades for us to reach the place where we felt able to talk to others about what was done to us. This is common in victims of child sexual abuse.

We ask for the vigorous support of the Horace Mann administration and Trustees and the wider Horace Mann community in helping us prevent these still-living perpetrators from harming any other children as they harmed us. We ask you to help us work with law enforcement to investigate these perpetrators and to ensure that they are removed from contact with children.

Though we may have questions about some of the things Dr. Kelly has done or said on other matters in the past and in the present crisis, we wish to thank him for his strong support in recent days in helping us persuade law enforcement officials to take our concerns seriously and to act on them.

Never Again at Horace Mann

We appreciate the public assurances from the Horace Mann administration and Trustees that Horace Mann has changed greatly since we were abused, and that the school now has policies to ensure that such things will not be repeated. But when these policies were put into place, they were not informed by the experiences that were recently disclosed. We believe Horace Mann can and must do much more to reassure us and the wider community that such things could never again take place at Horace Mann.

We are told that the people who were involved in abuse and the others who failed to act on reports of abuse are now all gone from Horace Mann. This is not true. We believe that several members of the current Board of Trustees were present at a meeting in 1993 with Ben Balter’s mother in which the school refused to take appropriate action on Ben’s letter describing the abuse he suffered. Unless evidence can be presented to contradict this, we request that these Trustees resign or be compelled to resign. Until the Board takes this action regarding its current membership, it is difficult for us to believe that the “old Horace Mann” that enabled abuse no longer exists, nor that the Board of Trustees is dealing with us in good faith.

We are told that Horace Mann now has strong policies in place to ensure that credible allegations of sexual abuse are promptly reported to the authorities. But some of us have in the last several years brought first-hand allegations to the attention of school administrators and Trustees, and we believe they were not dealt with adequately. These include allegations about teachers who are still alive. In another case school resources were used to promote an event to honor publicly a recently deceased abuser, despite a private promise by the school not to do so. Many of us feel strongly that that the names of our abusers should be removed from honor rolls and building plaques on the campus, and that the School should not sponsor or in any way support events in their honor.

We applaud the current administration for its stated determination to conduct a thorough internal investigation now of what happened. In light of what we have noted above, however, we believe that a purely internal investigation is not sufficient to reassure us and the wider Horace Mann community of the administration’s determination to address the situation thoroughly and transparently. We call upon the administration to invite an independent body to conduct a thorough investigation and to give that body the full access needed to conduct a credible investigation of what happened, of who knew what when, and of what was or was not done about it. Such an investigation would reassure us and the wider Horace Mann community of the administration’s determination to deal transparently with this crisis and to do all that is necessary to ensure that the climate which enabled abuse in the past can never again thrive at Horace Mann. Such investigations would do much to restore the credibility and integrity of our beloved alma mater.

Helping the Victims

We ourselves have experienced deep and lasting trauma, pain and humiliation because of the violation we experienced as children at the hands of our trusted teachers and coaches. In some cases those who abused us had been our heroes and role models. We know of other victims who are still nearly crippled by that pain or who feel unable, unwilling or afraid to come forward. We believe that for each of us who has come forward there are several others who have not yet felt able to do so. Some of us have struggled with decades of depression, drug addiction, alcoholism, suicide attempts, broken relationships, etc., and we have spent countless hours in costly therapy seeking healing of our memories.

We believe the Horace Mann administration should make a public apology to us which expresses compassion for what we have suffered. Such an apology, though long overdue, would go a long way toward helping us and others experience healing.

We believe that Horace Mann has an obligation to act proactively to support the healing of those who were abused. For example, the School can and should establish a fund to compensate victims for such things as the cost of therapy and other loss and damage resulting from sexual abuse.

The School could also support and facilitate events or retreats – coordinated with us – that would promote healing of those who were abused in the past. We would also like the School’s public apology to be expressed privately to those of us who feel able to come to a private meeting. In this context survivors who feel able to do so should have opportunity to tell their stories to the Board and administration. Such actions, and others which we would be happy to discuss with the administration and Trustees, would go a long way to promote healing.

We understand that current administrators may not have been personally involved in past failures to act on our complaints and failure to report those complaints to the authorities. But some of us brought complaints to the administration or Board of Trustees in just the last several years, and we know that others came forward before us, yet we saw Horace Mann take little concrete action on our concerns until the New York Times Magazine article was published. This contributed to our continued sense of isolation and shame, and to the perception that we were alone, and it undermined our ability to pursue justice.

Furthermore, as Horace Mann alumni/ae we regularly receive fundraising literature urging us to support our alma mater because of its 125 years of tradition – because of the heritage of great work Horace Mann has done for many decades. It is true that Horace Mann has indeed done great work for many decades, and we are proud of that heritage. We are grateful for our many wonderful teachers at Horace Mann who never abused anyone and who ignited in us a lifelong love of learning. But the current administration cannot take credit for the good things in the past while disowning responsibility for the bad things in the past. The current administration cannot ask us to help them financially because of the good things their predecessors did in our lives while refusing to help us deal with the consequences of the bad things their predecessors did in our lives.

Change the System

Horace Mann has an opportunity to lead by example. Because of the prominence of Horace Mann as an institution, many other institutions and the wider public are watching closely the example which Horace Mann will set in dealing with this crisis. Horace Mann can and should serve as a model for other institutions in New York, in the U.S., and throughout the world.

We must change the current outdated statute of limitations in New York for sexual crimes against minors. As the New York Times reports, “For civil suits and many criminal charges, [current] New York law requires that allegations be made in court by the time a victim is 23 years old.” But research indicates that such is the power which abusers hold over their victims that only a tiny percentage of victims feel able to come forward before their 23rd birthday. For many of us it took decades for us to reach the place where we felt able to come forward. The current law is virtually a license to abuse children with impunity. We call upon the Horace Mann administration and the wider Horace Mann community to join us in supporting the Markey Bill (http://assembly.state.ny.us/leg/?bn=A5488). Though we would like to see a stronger bill, this bill is a step in the right direction. Dr. Kelly tells us that he publicly and privately supports passage of this bill, and we would like to thank him for that principled stand.

Conclusion

We want to thank our old classmates and fellow-alumni who have come forward with constructive proposals on how to move forward from here. We particularly welcome the letter from the Class of 1975 to the Board of Trustees and we ask the Trustees to read it carefully. We also welcome the letter to the Trustees from Adam Kasanof HM ’77, which we are appending to our letter. We applaud the courage of Dr. Kathleen Howard as she seeks justice for her late son Ben Balter. We are appending a letter representing her concerns, and we ask the Trustees to read this and Adam Kasanof’s letter and to give serious consideration to the recommendations they make.

We want to be clear that we still feel deeply connected to our alma mater. We are proud of the outstanding education we received at Horace Mann, and we are grateful for wonderful teachers who opened new horizons of learning for us. We do not want to hurt Horace Mann; we want to help heal it, though we have learned from experience that healing sometimes requires confronting painful realities. We welcome a dialogue with the Horace Mann administration and Trustees and the wider Horace Mann community, and we hope that this process of dialogue may lead to reconciliation, healing, justice and truth. We request that Dr. Kelly and the Trustees meet with us and Dr. Howard, with or without counsel, to work collaboratively to find solutions that will work for the survivors, their families and the wider Horace Mann family both past and present. We hope that our community may thereby serve as a role model for wider society.

Sincerely,
A group of survivors of sexual abuse by Horace Mann teachers and staff

 

Appendix 5B
Second Survivors’ Letter

July 11, 2012

To: The Horace Mann School Board of Trustees and Dr. Thomas Kelly, Head of School
Cc: The Horace Mann Community
From: The Horace Mann Survivors’ Group

We are more than twenty people who were sexually abused at Horace Mann. Our group includes both women and men. Those members of our group who tragically took their lives are represented by close family members. The abuse included heterosexual and homosexual violation. Our abusers include more than ten teachers and coaches, many of whom have not yet been publicly identified. Some of these abusers are still alive and living comfortable lives.

Three weeks have passed since we presented a letter to the Board of Trustees, and we have still received no response. We have received no acknowledgment of our letter, nor any indication of when or whether we will ever receive a personal response. We have received no gesture of compassion or caring from the Board of Trustees.

In our first letter, presented to Dr. Kelly on June 20 and to the Board on June 21, we sought to open a constructive dialogue with the Trustees and Administration to find solutions good for the school and for us. So far the Trustees appear to be stonewalling us. Some of us have had informal, private conversations with Dr. Kelly. His tone has been reasonably constructive, but he has not told us he is responding to our letter on behalf of the Trustees. We have received inquiries from the school’s lawyers, but this is not the same as hearing from the Trustees. We have heard from the school’s PR firm through the news media, but this is not the same as hearing from the Trustees.

It seems to us that the Trustees must do one of two things. The first alternative would be to give Dr. Kelly full authority to make decisions and to act on the issues we raised and the requests we made in our first letter. The second, if the Trustees insist on making all decisions themselves, is for them to respond to our letter immediately and to agree to meet promptly with us face-to-face.

The Trustees have an opportunity to create a win-win situation, and we hope they will seize it. They can demonstrate the school’s integrity by bringing an end to Horace Mann’s long history of covering up abuse. We brought many of our stories to school officials from the 1970s through the 2000s. In most cases nothing at all was done, and our abusers were allowed to continue their abuse. In some cases school officials – including both Administration officials and Trustees – urged us to keep silent or even bullied us into silence. We believe that some of these Trustees are still members of the Board. To our knowledge, no one reported these events to Child Protective Services or law enforcement. In one case a student who was being sexually abused was asked to meet with the Guidance Department Chairman, only to be sexually abused by that Chairman and then to have that Chairman take retaliatory action against the victim in the classroom. We encourage the Trustees to put an end to this sad tradition.

We do not want to harm our alma mater. Most of us love Horace Mann and are proud to have studied there. But we have been pressured to be silent too many times. The Trustees can no longer ignore us or delay their response. If the Trustees are unwilling to respond to us, instead continuing to communicate with us only through their lawyers and their PR firm, then they – not we – will have done serious harm to the school.

If the Trustees give full authority to Dr. Kelly to make decisions and act on the requests in our first letter, then that would give more substance to our current conversations with Dr. Kelly. But if the Board of Trustees insist that only they may make the decisions regarding what to do about the abuse we suffered, then they must respond to us directly and meet with us.

Sincerely,

The Horace Mann Survivors’ Group

 

Appendix 5C
Third Survivors’ Letter

May 04, 2013

Nearly a year has passed since the New York Times described how our trusted mentors at Horace Mann sexually abused us over a period of decades. In June 2012 we wrote to the Board of Trustees asking for an independent investigation, an apology, and the resignation of Trustees who covered up the abuse. Unlike other schools which have quickly done these things after similar revelations, Horace Mann has waited a year before responding to these requests. Now, at last, we have at least a partial reply.

The positive elements in the school’s response are a step forward. The school has apologized, but the quality of that apology is undermined if the Trustees do not want to know fully the extent and nature of the problem for which the school is apologizing. The school’s letter still uses the word “alleged,” but it does go on to acknowledge unspecified “abuse.”

Eliminating the position of Emeriti Trustees means the resignation of certain Trustees whose departure we welcome, but not all departing Trustees were responsible for the cover-up. An independent investigation would make clear which Trustees should resign and which should be exonerated or even praised.

The Trustees have still not responded substantively to our chief request – that they commission an independent investigation. The longer the Trustees resist this, the more they communicate that they do not want to know the full truth about the scale of the abuse or the cover-up perpetrated by the school.

An independent investigation – a searching and fearless moral inventory of past mistakes – is the only way to prevent repeating those mistakes in the future. If Trustees do not want to understand past mistakes, this does not bode well for the safety of children at HM today. Today’s HM students are watching closely our example. Several of us reported abuse to the school when we were students. The school did not investigate our reports, but instead sometimes used threats of retribution to pressure us into silence. If Trustees today still refuse an independent investigation of our reports, how can today’s students trust HM to investigate fully if, God forbid, they ever have reason to report similar abuse?

An independent investigation is the only way for the Trustees to put this crisis behind them. As long as they resist this, the school’s reputation will continue to suffer from a steady drip of revelations in the press and a cloud of suspicion about what else remains hidden. Trustees’ resistance devalues the quality and prestige of a Horace Mann diploma, causing fiduciary harm to the school. HM has now become a case study for social-science research into institutional betrayal of victims of sexual abuse. HM students applying to college are forced to distance themselves from the amoral example of their school. Students must show that, unlike the Trustees, they do believe that “Great is the truth, and it prevails.”

A report by Commonwealth Mediation summarizing our confidential statements is no substitute for a proper investigation in which the school transparently opens its files (to the extent allowed by law) and encourages its present and former agents to speak candidly to an investigator.

The Bronx District Attorney recently reported a “systemic pattern” in an “almost four decade period of sexual abuse at Horace Mann.” We were sexually abused by more than twenty teachers, including the Headmaster, the Dean of Guidance, the School Chaplain, two Department Chairs, and other senior officials. We reported this to the school that was paid to educate and protect us, and the school covered it up and refused to investigate. To refuse to investigate now is to continue the cover-up. Trustees who are blocking an independent investigation are causing fiduciary harm to the school, and the time has come for these Trustees to resign.

Because Trustees have declined to commission an independent investigator of their own choosing, we intend to cooperate with the investigation conducted by Judge Leslie Crocker Snyder. We would prefer to work with an investigation commissioned by the school, but we will cooperate with Judge Snyder, as her investigation is now the only option available to us.

 

Appendix 5D
Fourth Survivors’ Letter

May 04, 2013

We are a group of more than thirty^[i] survivors of sexual abuse at Horace Mann. We write in response to Sunday’s letter from Board Chair Steve Friedman and Head of School Tom Kelly, in which they blamed us for their refusal to tell you and us what happened at HM and why. As a result, we are asking you directly today to support our ongoing call for an independent investigation and public accounting, ending the cover-up at Horace Mann.

Mr. Friedman and Dr. Kelly would have you believe we are satisfied with the trustees’ actions. This is false. The trustees’ response has left us worse off than before, causing fresh pain and hindering our ability to heal and to move on with our lives. From the beginning, our chief request has been a fully public investigation by a credible, independent third party – not merely the minimum legally required cooperation with law enforcement. We continue to call upon Horace Mann to explain who knew what, when they knew it, how they responded, and how abuse was allowed to flourish for decades. Dozens of us were molested. Many more teachers abused us than the media have reported. Numerous trustees and administrators knew but did nothing or coerced victims into silence. As we have stated in the past, and despite contrary claims in Sunday’s letter, we are eager to tell our stories to a responsible investigator who examines both the roots of the abuse itself and the subsequent cover-up. We are not willing to do what has been offered: for our painful stories to be exploited in a “report” which intentionally ignores our questions about how a climate of molestation, rape and cover-up was allowed to flourish. To reject our request and then to blame us for the school’s lack of transparency – claiming the trustees are acting “out of respect for [our] wishes” – is yet another in a series of betrayals.

We make these requests out of affection for our alma mater and a desire to help heal our school and our community. We renew our request, expressed in our June and July 2012 letters, to meet with the trustees outside a legal environment to promote truth-based reconciliation. Our school’s motto is “Great is the truth, and it prevails.” If Mr. Friedman does not believe that motto, then he should resign in favor of someone who does believe in pursuing truth. If you support us in wanting our school to commission or cooperate with a careful investigation and to tell the truth of what happened, please write to Mr. Friedman and Dr. Kelly at headofschool@horacemann.org. If you have donated to Horace Mann in the past, please consider telling them that until the truth is told, you will restrict your donations to supporting an investigation (commissioned by HM or by alumni) or to helping the victims directly. If you have not donated in the past, please consider telling them you will give if they stop the cover-up. If you have any questions, you can contact us at HoraceMannSurvivor@gmail.com.

 

Appendices 6A – 6G
Letters from Horace Mann to the Community

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Appendix 7
Statement By Bronx District Attorney
May 01, 2013

In June of 2012, a New York Times Magazine article detailed a pattern of sexual abuse at Horace Mann School in the Bronx.  In response to that article and a request by the New York City Council, The Bronx District Attorney’s Office set up a hotline for victims and others to report allegations of abuse directly to our Child Abuse and Sex Crimes Bureau. We established a line of communication with the current administration of Horace Mann and began to review the school’s child abuse reporting policies and procedures. We also pursued other investigative leads.

In the 10 and a half month period following the creation of the hotline, approximately 30 calls came into the hotline, most of which were fielded in the first few months.  From the onset of the hotline, The Bronx District Attorney’s Office worked closely with the NYPD, Bronx Special Victim’s Squad, to address allegations of abuse and to further investigate these allegations.

This joint effort resulted in over 60 separate interviews to date, over 25 of which were with victims of alleged abuse.  Interviews were conducted with individuals both inside and outside the State of New York.  Members of the Bronx Special Victim’s Squad traveled to several other states including California, Colorado and Vermont to speak to individuals regarding allegations of abuse.  Any and all victims of abuse were offered the services of the Crime Victim’s Assistance Unit of The Bronx District Attorney’s Office. This is the unit which provides essential support and services to crime victims through a combination of direct supportive counseling, referrals, and other services.  The unit has services specifically tailored to sexual assault survivors.

The interviews conducted by The Bronx District Attorney’s Office and the NYPD reveal a systemic pattern of alleged abuse beyond what was outlined in the original New York Times Magazine article.  In total, we received direct information regarding at least 12 separate alleged abusers.  The reported abuse ranges from what may be characterized as inappropriate behavior to child endangerment, actual instances of sexual contact, sexual intercourse and criminal sexual acts.  The earliest instance of abuse that was reported to us occurred in 1962.  While the majority of the abuse was said to have occurred in the 1970s, additional instances of abuse were reported from the 1980s and 1990s.  The last reported occurrence of abuse was in 1996.

To date, all instances of reported sexual abuse occurring at Horace Mann between 1962 and 1996 are beyond New York State’s Criminal Statute of Limitations (CPL 30.10.) Prior to August 1, 1996, the Statute of Limitations for all felonies, other than homicides, was 5 years.  The Statute of Limitations for all misdemeanors was 2 years.  In August of 1996, the Statute of Limitations was expanded for Child Sex Crimes.  With this change, the 5 year period of limitation does not begin to run until the child’s 18th birthday or until the case is reported to law enforcement or the state central registry, whichever occurs earlier.  On June 23, 2006, the Statute of Limitations was eliminated altogether for all Class “B” felonies contained in Article 130 (entitled “Sex Offenses”) of the Penal Law.  Neither of these Legislative changes provides any recourse for a prosecution of any act of past sexual abuse at Horace Mann which has currently been reported. It might be noted that the United States Supreme Court has held that once the criminal statute of limitations has expired in a particular case, it cannot be revived without violating the ex post facto clause of the federal constitution. Stognerv.California, 539 U.S. 607 (2003.)

It has been reported that throughout the almost four decade period of sexual abuse at Horace Mann, there were instances of abuse coming to the attention of school officials without law enforcement being notified.  This certainly highlights an alarming gap in New York State’s mandatory reporting laws.  New York State’s Social Services Law (sections 411-415) mandates specifically enumerated professionals, including all school officials, to report suspected child abuse or maltreatment by a parent or “other person legally responsible” for the child.  “Other person legally responsible” refers to a guardian, caretaker, or other person 18 years of age or older who is responsible for the care of the child. Thus, this statute requires private school officials to report sexual abuse by parents or guardians, but not by other employees. Another statute, New York State’s Education Law (sections 1125-26) outlines the duties of specifically enumerated employees upon receipt of an allegation of child abuse in an “educational setting.” However, “educational setting” only includes a public school district, not a private one, so private school officials are not mandated reporters under this law. In order to effectuate real change to New York State’s Mandatory Reporting Law, under the Social Services Law, the context of the abuse should be broadened to include child abuse committed by anyone employed by a school or occurring on school property or at a school sponsored event.  Additionally, New York State’s Education Law ought to be expanded to cover private school districts.  We will press for these changes.

In September of 2012, Horace Mann added to their “Family Handbook” a new “Policy on Reporting Child Abuse of Students by School Employees.”  Just recently, after some discussions with the Bronx District Attorney’s Office, the language in this policy has been amended to highlight the importance of immediate notification to law enforcement. The Bronx District Attorney’s Office encourages other educational institutions to adopt similar guidelines until legislative change is appropriately effectuated.

The Bronx District Attorney’s Office would like to thank those individuals who shared their accounts of abuse with us, and commend them for their courage in doing so.  We remain available to provide the services which our Crime Victim’s Assistance Unit offers. We also remain available to continue to receive information from victims of sexual abuse at Horace Mann, as well as from all victims of sexual abuse.

 

Appendix 8
HMAC Reply to Statement by Bronx District Attorney
April 26, 2013

The Horace Mann Action Coalition is grateful to the Bronx District Attorney’s Office, the NYPD, and the Bronx Special Victim’s Squad for investigating the multiple cases of sexual abuse that took place at the Horace Mann School for over three decades. The investigation confirmed the existence of “a systemic pattern of alleged abuse beyond what was outlined in the original New York Times Magazine article.” The District Attorney’s Office concluded that at least 12 separate abusers committed everything from acts of child endangerment to “actual instances of sexual contact, sexual intercourse and criminal sexual acts,” ranging from 1962 to 1996.

Sadly, the archaic nature of New York State’s statute of limitations makes it impossible for any individual or institution to be prosecuted for these crimes. It is for this reason that HMAC supports Assemblywoman Marge Markey’s Child Victims Act (A1771), which would completely eliminate statutes of limitations in the future, and provide a one year window for old civil cases, in order to give justice to victims and expose abusers.

Most disturbingly, the District Attorney’s Office found a pattern of administrative failure to take sexual abuse seriously at Horace Mann. The report concludes “that throughout the almost four decade period of sexual abuse at Horace Mann, there were instances of abuse coming to the attention of school officials without law enforcement being notified.” Indeed, HMAC has documented at least eighteen cases in which sexual abuse was brought to the attention of Horace Mann teachers, administrators and board of trustee members. In each case, the student who reported the abuse was told that pursuing the accusations might hurt his chances at attending the college of his choice, or that Horace Mann wouldn’t consider a case for which the student had no “video or audio” evidence. It is tragic to consider how much suffering might have been avoided had even a few of the accusations been investigated.

Those who have believed Horace Mann’s assurances that such behavior was a thing of the past will be disappointed to learn that it wasn’t until September 2012 two months after the New York Times Magazine article that first brought the reports of sexual abuse to the school’s attention that “Horace Mann added to their ‘Family Handbook’ a new ‘Policy on Reporting Child Abuse of Students by School Employees.’” What was the school’s policy before September 2012? Did it have such a policy? The District Attorney’s report does not say.

What the report does make clear is that the Bronx District Attorney’s Office judged Horace Mann’s September 2012 policies on reporting sexual abuse by employees inadequate. In what way did they believe it to be inadequate? The District Attorney’s Office felt that Horace Mann’s policy needed to be “amended to highlight the importance of immediate notification to law enforcement.” Was the school’s reluctance the reporting sexual abuse to law enforcement? Or was it reluctant to report sexual abuse in a timely fashion? Perhaps both. The report doesn’t say.

In light of these conclusions, board of trustee chairman Steve Friedman and Headmaster Tom Kelly should take the action HMAC and others have been calling for since June 2012. It should officially and unambiguously acknowledge that sexual abuse took place, it should officially and unambiguously apologize to those who were victims of sexual abuse at Horace Mann, and it should cooperate with an independent investigation into the conditions that allowed decades of sexual abuse by multiple abusers to occur.

We are confident that the District Attorney’s report is the beginning, not the end, of this investigation. The Horace Mann Action Coalition Support Fund has retained Judge Leslie Crocker Snyder to supervise the investigation, and raised funds to support it. We hope that Horace Mann alumni, as well as anyone who is concerned about the sexual abuse of children, will consider making a donation to the investigation.