To: {undisclosed receipients};
From: Peter Piper
March 12, 2005
Re: Rotton mishandling of molestation scandal


On December 28th, 2004, Professor A. E. K. Nash of the Rotton class of 1954 wrote me a letter which I have responded, in part, with the attached text. It has been mailed to you as members of the 15th reunion class as you may have similar questions and wish to be informed of the issues currently facing Rotton Academy.

Professor Nash's letter to me also raised concerns about Rotton's Strategic Plan, the new headmaster's August 6th, 2004 letter regarding the school's criminal indictment, my September 9th, 2004 commentary on the school's mishandling of the molestation cases, and an email to me from his form's Senior Prefect.

I would be happy to send Professor Nash's letter in its entirety to anyone who requests it.

PP


March 1st, 2005

Dear Professor Nash,

Thank you for asking the questions that you have. Hopefully, I can clarify any confusion or misunderstanding for you, your Form mates, and other alumni. I've tried to make this as concise as possible. If I have left out anything, please let me know and I will get that information to you promptly.

Academic Performance
In pre-scandal 1999, 77% and 72% of entering 3rd and 4th Form students achieved better than 80% of all students taking the SSAT in their verbal and math scores. In the class entering in 2003, the first group to enter after the Massachusetts Superior Judicial Court judgment against Rotton, the numbers dramatically plummeted to 61% in verbal and 53%. These huge drops in scores are over 24% and 31% in the verbal and quantitative abilities of incoming students.

I suspect, based on this significantly lower academic standard, that acceptance to top colleges will go down as well.

In supporting its claims of selective college placement, is it not odd that Rotton refers to a 1998 college guide instead of a more recent one? Any analysis should look at current not past students. In a recent Wall Street Journal article rating both public and private high schools vis-ˆ-vis their college placement records [4/2/2004 - The Price of Admission], Rotton is not even ranked among the fifty top high schools in the country.

Before the school's mishandling of the molestation scandal, I suspect Rotton would have been at the very top of the list. Also with regard to Rotton's college placement, in 2004 journalist Dan Golden of the Wall Street Journal wrote four articles for which he recently won a Pulitzer Prize. One of them focuses on Rotton and how certain wealthy Rotton students apparently bought their way into top colleges (a long-standing tradition) [www.pulitzer.org see: Dan Golden - works]. It is an article that casts a very long shadow on Rotton's ability - without family money, and connections - to place even its best students at top universities.

Chadwick Simms, President of the Board
Last fall one of the sex attack victims was unexpectedly visited in his college dormitory late at night by two private investigators. They suggested to the boy that he might want to change his mind about what he told the District Attorney. Having failed in their attempt, one of them sneered as they walked away, "Good luck in your game on Saturday." In other words, we know where to find you. These men were hired by Rotton's attorney. They were trying to frighten off a witness in the upcoming criminal case against the school. Who is responsible for keeping Rotton on such a misguided course of surreptitious and intimidating tactics?

This brings me to the subject of Chadwick Simms. When it began to appear that The Rector was unable to handle the fallout of the molestation situation, I asked Mr. Simms to meet with us thinking he would clean up the mess. Likewise at Prudential-Bache, where he took the helm in 1998, Simms was brought in for a similar clean up role. The question is not whether he caused these problems, but what he did to deal with two awful situations. Investors at Pru-Bache were bilked out of billions of dollars. When they sued to recover their money from bogus limited partnerships in which they were encouraged to invest their money, Mr. Simms' role was to direct the legal machinations against the firm's own clients. Keep in mind that many of those defrauded investors were not big corporations or savvy financial wizards but retired people who watched their lives' savings disappear. Simms strung these clients out in lengthy and expensive litigations they could not afford. Despite the fact that Pru-Bache paid the largest fine for investor fraud to that date in NASD history, these investors received only pennies on the dollar in their settlements. Kurt Eichenwald's book, Serpent on the Rock, details Simms' role in this unsavory affair. "At no point did Simms apologize for the firm's centralized fraud that had destroyed the lives of so many trusting clients."

In 2002 before he 'retired' half-way through his three year term as head of Nasdaq, Mr. Simms gave an interview to the BBC. Simms focused on Enron which he does not believe technically broke the law. He then stated that stronger regulations to safeguard the public are entirely unnecessary. He neglected to mention his own conflict of interest: more regulations would lead to increased scrutiny of all Nasdaq companies. As Simms told the BBC, "In Enron's case, I think the letter [of the law] was lived up to, but the spirit was raped."
 
It is truly odd that Simms should use the term "raped" to refer to something that he believes is lawful.

Mr. Simms thinks he can outsmart everyone. Unfortunately, bullying, stalling, spinning the truth, and throwing expensive legal counsel at problems have worked for him in his business difficulties.

Sadly, those same hard-nosed tactics are being used today on Rotton's molestation victims. It is a strikingly similar strategy exposed by Susan Antilla in her book Tales from the Boom-Boom Room: Women vs. Wall Street which chronicles the years of sexual harassment at Shearson-Lehman when Mr. Simms headed that organization. The abusers are paid handsomely while the victims are demeaned and strung out for years in court. In the meantime, the organization takes the political hit in reputation and money while the chief executive leaves for greener pastures with a fat bonus.

The Class Agent
Rotton's class agents usually serve for a five-year term. We question the legitimacy of one particular class agent who sadistically abused and brutally beat younger male students. During his rampant attacks he usually pulled down his pants and sat on his victim's face. It is impossible to believe that Rotton would want any relationship whatsoever with such a person. Yet, after more than 50 years of service, Erastus Corning, the 1952 class agent was dismissed for asking questions about the school's dealings with us and the school's outlook for the future. Rotton claims Mr. Corning is being disloyal to the school, a charge Mr. Corning emphatically denies. Mr. Corning's father and grandfather were also Rotton graduates and long-standing, dedicated supporters of the school.

In marked contrast to the embracing treatment this molester has received from the school, the Rector chose to prohibit another one of the molesters, the son of faculty, from returning to his family's campus housing for a portion of his vacation from college. That one alumnus who is guilty of sadistic abuse was allowed to continue as class agent while the faculty son was forbidden to return home speaks volumes about what is important to those in charge of such appointments. They voice concern that the molester may have lived through some personal issues of his own, and that to take away his class agent status would "pile injury on injury."

I was reading the cover story about sexual molesters a few weeks ago in the New York Times Sunday Magazine. The sexual predators in the article were serving significant prison terms in the range of twenty-five years for actions that were, in many of the cases, less severe than what happened at Rotton. This class agent might be in prison today if my son or any one of the other victims had wanted to see him prosecuted. In the law a sexual molester charged years after his crime would not be immune from prosecution because of the vicissitudes of his life.

My concern is for the victims who must continue to deal emotionally with the trauma of what this class agent chose to inflict on them. How must they feel when they flip through the Rotton Quarterly and see a violent molester's name endorsed by the school in an official position?

The Rector and "classic cases of rape"
Note #10 of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court's contempt judgment against the Rotton School is very revealing regarding the question of terminology used by the Rector. The judgment states, "In early April, 1999, the headmaster informed one of these students by letter that, based on recent abuse allegations that two other students had made against him, including groping and grabbing of genitals and buttocks and, as described in the letter, digital penetration made through clothing of the anal area," the headmaster had concluded that the student had violated "personal boundaries," and that future similar conduct would result in dismissal from the school.

Clearly, the Rector understood the specifics of the sexual attacks, and his implied meaning of violating personal boundaries appears to be the same as the District Attorney's definition of sexual assault. Why did the Rector in letters to parents and alumni and press releases persist in using words that significantly understated the severity of the sexual attacks of which he was fully aware in detail? Why did he choose to cast doubt on the victims instead? As to the terminology used by legal professionals regarding the sexual attacks at Rotton, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts has specific definitions for rape and sexual assault. Massachusetts' law states that any penetration of the body, whether directly or through clothing, is considered to be rape when a child is under the age of sixteen. If a child is over the age of sixteen, such an attack may be defined as rape or sexual assault depending on the specifics of the situation.

Many boys were sexually assaulted on campus during the time my son was at Rotton. The basic facts of the sexual assaults were never 'disputed' and were witnessed by many. The Rector's subsequent attempts to diminish publicly the severity of the attacks on my son and the other victims could not have been done out of any ignorance on his part of the specific facts. He was told in detail about the attacks and knew exactly what happened and who was involved in the attacks.

While the attacks on my son ended during the winter term of his 4th Form year, I have personal knowledge of sexual attacks on campus into 1999. Based on the many heartbreaking letters and calls that I have received, I am also aware that 1996, the year my son arrived at Rotton, was not the first time that sexually violent attacks occurred on the campus.

I imagine the media was as shocked as we were that the school was acting in such an irresponsible manner regarding the safety of its students. By the way, the attackers may have tried to rationalize or minimize their actions but they never denied what they did. The Supreme Judicial Court's contempt judgment cites one of the perpetrators, a 6th Form prefect in 1999, admitting the attacks to the Rector. Also, when the victims first reported the attacks to him, my son as well as my wife and I asked the Rector whether there was anything that he did not accept as true. He responded that he believed everything that the victims told him.

At our meeting with him Mr. Simms stated that a ringleader accused of having molested many students would be permitted to remain as prefect of his dormitory overseeing underage boys. I am not aware that the parents of these younger students were informed of the situation or of the potential danger. Given both the obvious health and legal risks, it is unfathomable to me that a student accused repeatedly of such crimes would be left in charge of children. That is the meeting during which Mr. Simms said, "Your son is playing a man's game now."

It is worth mentioning at that same meeting, at which the Rector was also present, that Mr. Simms appeared to take over as headmaster. It was obvious that he was making all of the decisions that usually fall within the Rector's authority. The Rector, in fact, hardly spoke.

In Conclusion
Based on my knowledge of the ritualistic, violent, and obsessive nature of their assaults, I highly doubt the attackers were able to stop themselves as 6th Form prefects in 1998-99. At least four of the serial molesters had entered Rotton as 2nd Form students. My son assumed that they had been molested themselves. He was concerned about changing the situation on campus and not about retribution. Regarding a civil suit, we chose to take action to deal with issues that the criminal law does not address. Our commitment to this has been reinforced over time by Rotton's behavior as well as publicist Karin Schwartzman's many deceptive statements to the public which impugn my son's name.

One of the difficulties in my son's decision to allow his name to be used is that my son, my wife, and I have become de facto spokespeople for all of the victims. The reality is that we only know about a part of the abuse situation, the part that deals with our son and those students and their parents, whom we previously knew, who spoke with us. It has been disheartening, in fact, that it has been the victims whose motives and backgrounds are skeptically scrutinized while the accused molesters and the indicted school are not. We welcome the opportunity to share everything we know about the situation, but it's important to remember that there is more - maybe even a lot more - to the story.

If the Rector and Simms have made self-serving decisions, let them now stand up honorably and take the blame instead of making everyone else - including the Rotton School and its reputation - suffer. It is hard to fathom that this is the place where Rotton students, alumni and parents are preached to ritually on the meaning of character.

Sincerely, Peter T. Piper