[NPR.ORG] An elite boarding school in Connecticut is acknowledging sexual abuse by seven now-former staffers against 16 students — going back as far as 1969 and lasting until 1992.The Hotchkiss School in Lakeville, Conn., is a private high school of about 600 students.
"For many graduates, Hotchkiss was a wonderful experience, yet a significant number of former students recounted enduring sexual abuse at the hands of faculty," according to a report from the law firm Locke Lord that was released on Friday.
The report names seven former staffers, including teachers, an athletic director, medical director and choral director. Most of those named were employed by the school for decades, some as recently as the 2000s and one in 2012. Three of them have died, the school says.
Three other adults who were "formerly part of the Hotchkiss community" are not named, but investigators found the reports of their abuse "highly credible."
Many of the instances of abuse detailed in the report focus on Leif Thorne-Thomsen, a classics teacher at the school between 1964 and 1992. He married two of his former students.
"Thorne-Thomsen abused girls who were vulnerable, a number of whom had experienced other sexual abuse earlier in life, and virtually all of whom felt they were outsiders of sorts," the report says. "Thorne-Thomsen would ingratiate himself with them by sharing personal details about his life and coax them into believing that he was relying on them for emotional support. He used the trust these students placed in him as a teacher and mentor to engage in repeated acts of sexual misconduct.