Boston Sexual Abuse Lawyer Blog

The Boston Globe reports today that Stephen Embry has filed a sexual abuse lawsuit against Harvard University, contending he was repeatedly molested by a swimming coach at the campus from 1969 to 1972. The alleged abuse began when Embry, now 55, was barely 12.

Embry, along with his lawyer, Carmen Durso, also asserts that Harvard misled him about the statute of limitations on abuse claims, and failed to disclose a previous claim brought in 1996 against the university and the swimming coach, Benn Merritt.

The complaint against Harvard, filed by the brother of one of Embry's closest boyhood friends, was dismissed. The suit against Merritt was resolved by settlement, court records show. A few months after the lawsuit was filed, Merritt killed himself in his Billerica home.

The Globe reports today that Embry first contacted a university lawyer shortly after recalling the abuse, and contends that Harvard did not disclose the prior abuse claim against Merritt to deter him from taking legal action.

"They told me they didn't know anything about this, that it happened too long ago," he said to the Globe. "They lied to me."

Citing a 2010 letter to Embry from a university lawyer, Durso told the Globe that the university committed fraud by misrepresenting the state's statute of limitation law.

"They had no legal duty to provide him with information" about the previous case, he said. "But they couldn't mislead him, and that's what they did."

Under Massachusetts law, victims of sexual abuse typically must file a civil claim within three years after they were last abused, or three years after turning 18. Under the "discovery rule," victims can also file a civil claim within three years of when they realized they had been abused, although defendants will often challenge this on statute of limitations grounds.

According to the Boston Globe, in 2010, Ellen Fels Berkman, a university attorney, told Embry that she had "been unable to find anyone who would support your suggestion that Harvard is legally responsible."

"The time has long since passed for bringing a legal claim against the university," she added.

That assertion, Durso says, was fraudulent, and discouraged Embry from pursing legal action.

In a statement issued Wednesday, university officials said "there was nothing to prevent" Embry from taking legal action, and that there was no evidence Harvard was aware of any abuse at the time.

Embry's case and others like it that I am looking into underscore the need to relax the state's statute of limitation laws. Victims may not realize they have been abused until decades later.

"The laws have simply not kept up with the reality of the trauma," said Jetta Bernier, executive director of Massachusetts Citizens for Children.

Continue reading "Man files sexual abuse lawsuit against Harvard " »

The Boston Globe reports that a Burlington woman has filed a civil lawsuit against her uncle, alleging that he raped her repeatedly as a child and subjected her to sexual abuse from 10 other men, before her family coerced her into signing an agreement absolving him from responsibility.

Rosanne Sliney, 48, filed a civil complaint in Middlesex Superior Court accusing Domenic A. Previte Jr., 70, of Waltham, of abuse and stating that he confessed to it years later in a signed letter to his niece. The Globe (and this blog) does not identify alleged victims of sexual abuse but the Globe used Sliney's name because she has chosen to go public with her allegations and she included her own name in the complaint.

"You were like a flower in springtime,'' Previte wrote in the letter, according to a copy included in Sliney's complaint. "I admired and respected you and loved you as my own daughter. . . . Somehow things got twisted. . . . I had confused my love for you with sex.''

The abuse at the hands of Previte occurred at locations including his home in Waltham, his car wash business in Cambridge, and a movie theater in Woburn, the complaint states.

Sliney contends the abuse began when she was 5 and lasted until she was about 14. Her family pressured her to sign an agreement in 1991 releasing Previte from any responsibility in exchange for a payment from him of $26,500, according to the complaint.

She alleges in the complaint that she did not understand the nature of the agreement that she signed in her late 20s, because of her damaged mental state after the abuse.

Though Sliney was told that Previte would take care of her for the rest of her life, the complaint states, her uncle has refused to pay thousands of dollars in medical bills related to mental health problems stemming from the abuse.

Sliney also asserts that she has begun during the last year to recall Previte forcing her to engage in sex acts with 10 other men, who are listed as codefendants in the lawsuit, but who are not identified by name.

The state corporations database lists Previte as the president of Previte Real Estate and Investments Inc. in Waltham, a business specializing in car wash purchases and sales.

A former Waltham Public Schools student has filed a lawsuit alleging that a former Waltham High School principal failed to act on prior reports of sexual abuse by a teacher that could have prevented the teacher from abusing him.

Patch.com reports that former student and alleged victim, Michael Phillips Jr., in the lawsuit filed in Middlesex Superior Court on Dec. 16, claims that former Waltham High School Principal and School Committee member-elect John Graceffa failed to act on prior reports of sexual abuse against students by Robert Dacey a former drama teacher at John W. McDevitt Middle School, who died in 2007 while he was awaiting trial on sexual abuse charges.

Graceffa currently works as the dean of students at Arlington Catholic High School in Arlington, according to the Boston Globe.

Specifically, Phillips' attorney, Carmen Durso said that Graceffa had been informed three times in 2002 about prior acts of abuse by Dacey, but failed to take action about them.

Dacey allegedly abused Phillips, now 20, in 2005, while a student at McDevitt Middle School. Phillips, after being abused three times, reported it to police in August 2006, according to Durso.

Reached by Waltham Patch yesterday, Graceffa said he had "no idea" about the lawsuit and was shocked to learn about it from a reporter. When asked whether he planned to take his seat on the School Committee early next year, he said, "yes."

Specifically, the lawsuit claims Graceffa violated the state's law that mandates school officials report such incidents to police. The suit also claims the City of Waltham, also named as a defendant, violated Title IX, a federal law requiring schools to have procedures about notice, education and training for reporting sexual abuse.

"Waltham very likely has such procedures but they certainly were not followed in this case. If they had been, Michael ... probably would not have been abused," Durso said.

Dacey died in June 2007, reportedly from a heart attack, while awaiting trial on 17 felony charges of sexual intercourse with a child, assault with intent to rape, indecent assault and battery on child under the age of fourteen, indecent assault and battery on a child under the age of 14, indecent assault and battery on a child over the age of 14, enticement of a child and statutory rape of a child, according to the lawsuit. The charges stem from alleged abuse against three separate boys.

A van company hired by the Peabody School Department to transport students to a summer program has been sued on behalf of four children allegedly molested and assaulted by a bus monitor.

The lawsuit filed in September in Salem Superior Court alleges that Ameriken Caring Services of Revere failed to provide safe transportation to the children -- three boys and a girl ages 9 and 10 -- and failed to protect them by negligently hiring, supervising and retaining the monitor.

The Salem News reported that the children allegedly were touched inappropriately, pinched on the thighs hard enough to leave bruises, and suffered other physical abuse. The monitor's name was not disclosed.

The Boston Globe reports that a woman who claims she was sexually abused by a janitor at Camp Good News has filed a lawsuit in Barnstable Superior Court. This is the same camp at which Senator Scott Brown has disclosed that he was sexually abused as a child camper.