Teacher faces sex abuse charges
A 2nd educator at now-closed school being sued for rape
HANCOCK — A teacher at a now-shuttered school for troubled teenagers in Delaware County was indicted last week for allegedly coercing three different children to travel with him across state lines for sexual activity.
Paul Geer, 57, who worked at the Family Foundation School from the 1990s until the school closed in 2014, was indicted last week on six federal counts, according to the U.S. attorney’s office. The school has been hit with disturbing allegations in the past, including a lawsuit from a former student who accused a school counselor of repeatedly raping her while she was a minor.
Geer is accused of imposing Draconian disciplinary measures on students “tantamount to torture,” prosecutors said.
Geer is accused of forcing a student to eat food the student had vomited and depriving students of food altogether; rolling students up in carpets or locking them in dark closets for hours or days at a time without allowing them to use the bathroom, sometimes resulting in the student soiling themselves; forced labor; and “blackouts,” where students and staff were not permitted to talk to a student for days at a time, according to the indictment.
The indictment alleges that on three separate occasions — in 1994, 2000 and 2001 — Geer “used his position of authority and his ability to impose these brutal sanctions” to coerce three different students to travel with him, on separate occasions, to Maine, Pennsylvania and Toronto. He is accused of raping or sexually abusing them.
The case is being investigated by the FBI.
Geer also faces a lawsuit alleging he sexually abused
a student from September 1997 to March 1999.
The lawsuit, which was filed in November under the Adult Survivors Act, alleges Geer would summon the student to the top floor of an empty barn, where he would molest the student and masturbate. The contact occurred at least twice a month, the lawsuit alleges, and was not confined to the school premises: Geer once allegedly molested the student in the back of a school van before a choir performance at a local church. After the alleged abuse, Geer went into the church and conducted the choir, the student forced to sing with the other students, the lawsuit alleges.
The complaint names several other educators as co-defendants for allegedly allowing and facilitating the abuse.
Geer was arrested last week. He could not be reached for comment. It was unclear if he had an attorney.
Several members of the former school are also facing a lawsuit accusing them of creating an atmosphere where sexual abuse by a school counselor, who is also named in the lawsuit, could occur.
The counselor, who claimed to be an ordained minister, according to the lawsuit, summoned the student to his office twoto-three times a week and raped her. This happened after the girl was forced by faculty during a group confession session to say “that she had been sexually molested at the age of seven, after which (the school’s) faculty falsely told (the alleged victim), and everyone present that she was a sex addict, according to the lawsuit. (The girl’s) peers were then required, one by one, to express agreement with this false, humiliating, debasing, absurd, and damaging ‘assessment.’ ”
The lawsuit claims during the alleged rapes, the counselor “pointed to his framed degrees on the wall and threatened [the] plaintiff: “I’m a licensed therapist and you’re a drug addict — if you tell anyone they’ll believe me, not you.”
The lawsuit also contains many of the allegations of brutal punishment contained in the indictment, which the lawsuit said was perpetrated by many staff members.
The lawsuit is ongoing. The three counts against Geer for coercion each carry a maximum of 10 years in prison, while the three counts for transporting children across state lines for sex acts carry a maximum of 15 years in prison and fines up to $250,000.
Former students of the school appear to have carried psychological scars from their experience. Though the oldest graduates are only in their 50s, more than 100 had died by 2018, according to the New York Times — most through drug overdoses or suicide.
Several members of the former school are also facing a lawsuit accusing them of creating an atmosphere where sexual abuse by a school counselor, who is also named in the lawsuit, could occur.