7 Former Staffers At Elite CT School Accused Of Sexual Abuse

LAKEVILLE, CT — A new report finds that at least seven former faculty members at an elite Connecticut boarding school sexually abused students in the late 1970s through the 1980s. The accusations in the report against the faculty members at the Hotchkiss School in Lakeville are from around the time period immediately following the school's transition to coeducational, the report notes.

The school engaged the law firm Locke Lord LLP to conduct the investigation. In its report, the law firm said it spoke with anyone who wished to speak on the topic. The firm received reports of sexual misconduct from as early as the 1940s to as late as the 2010s. No reports came from a current Hotchkiss student and the investigation did not substantiate sexual misconduct by a current faculty member with a student.

"What emerges from our investigation is a series of missed opportunities stemming from cultural deficiencies around prioritizing student safety, particularly in the late 1970s through 1980s," the report says.

One of the faculty members named in the report was a member of the Classics department Leif Thorne-Thomsen, who also coached the bike team. Thorne-Thomsen is accused of sexual misconduct against female students over a two-decade period, the report says.

"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 also went on to marry two of his former students.

Thorne-Thomsen was dismissed from the school in 1992 after an investigation the school commissioned to investigate the reports of sexual misconduct against him.

Other faculty members named in the report include Christopher Carlisle, a member of the English department and sports coach who also led a small student band, George "Rick" DelPrete, the school's long-time football coach and Dr. Peter Gott, a former medical director at the school.

The allegations of seven female students against Thorne-Thomsen are detailed in the report. Thorne-Thomsen began "kissing and touching" one student who would go to his house to babysit or study in the evenings, eventually having sex with the 17-year-old one time while she was student, the report says.

The student was “very, very upset about what happened,” and withdrew from his class, the report says. The two married in 1985 and had three children before getting divorced in 1993.

According to the report, Thorne-Thomsen also had sex with another student who enrolled in the school in the mid-1970s when she was 15 and continued to have sex with her while she was at the school. Another instance of sexual abuse involved a student who enrolled in the school in the early 1980s. According to the report, the student reached her breaking point when Thorne-Thomsen undressed her one evening at his house and kissed her all over her body and attempted to get her to kiss his penis and have sex with him, the report says. The student became frightened and left and did not see him throughout the rest of her time at Hotchkiss.

The report documented multiple instances of Hotchkiss officials being made aware of Thorne-Thomsen's conduct during the mid 1970s to the late 1980s and failing to take effective action.

A second faculty member, Christopher Carlisle, had sex with a 17-year-old student at his home on multiple occasions, according to the report. Carlisle, who died by suicide in 1982, was apparently obsessed with another student and wrote her love letters and sang songs to her, the report says. One witness said Carlisle "terrorized" the student.

The accusations agains the football coach, DelPrete, involve him showing pornographic cards to a student in the mid-1970s when she went to his apartment for tutoring help for a friend. The report says DelPrete rubbed the student's breasts and thighs and the student performed oral sex on DelPrete. The report also says he sent the student pornographic brochures to her school mailbox on several occasions. DelPrete denied the student's accusations.

The medical director, Dr. Gott, was accused of performing gynecological exams on female students when they didn't need them and he asked female patients to unnecessarily remove their clothes, the report says. Dr. Gott is deceased.

Another faculty member, Albert Sly, who is deceased, confessed to raping a male student, the report says. After leaving the school, Sly went on to work in several roles that allowed for contact with children and taught for one semester at Hotchkiss in 2008, according to the report.

One student who was abused by an English teacher, Ronald Carlson, confronted him about his behavior years after she graduated, the report says. According to the report, Carlson did not deny that he had abused her and appeared to blame his behavior on drinking.

Damon White, the son of the school's former head Arthur White, joined the faculty in 1983 and was dismissed in 2012. The report accuses White of plying a student with alcohol and pressuring her to perform oral sex on him on a frequent basis. According to the report, the student enrolled in the early 1980s and the abuse began in the second half of her senior year.

Other unsubstantiated reports of sexual misconduct are also included in the report.

"To the survivors of abuse, we apologize from the bottom of our hearts," the school wrote in a letter to the community. "The School did not live up to its commitment to protect you. We apologize with humility -- understanding that words cannot measure our sadness and regret or erase the harm that you endured. You were terribly hurt, and we can only hope to make amends by caring for you now and doing everything within our power to ensure that students now and in the future will be cared for and safe."

The report concludes that the school inadequately responded to reports of sexual misconduct for the following reasons:

• A failure to be aware, and sensitive to, sexual misconduct generally
• A lack of awareness of the sexual misconduct that can occur on a co-educational campus
• A failure to document reports of troubling behavior and the failure to share this information from one head of school to the next
• A prioritization of the school’s reputation and that of its faculty above the well-being of the individual students
• The lack of resources and support for both concerned faculty and students who observed or experienced sexual misconduct

The report says that while not all reports of sexual misconduct were made contemporaneously, there were multiple reports made at or near the time of the abuse that should have spurred the school to action. The report says the volume of reports regarding Thorne-Thomsen in particular suggests that there were clear warning signs regarding his behavior.

You can read the full report here. (Warning: Reports of sexual misconduct are described in graphic details in the report)

Photo via Google Street View