District says it doesn’t know ID of abuse accuser
KINGSTON, N.Y. » School district officials say they do not know the identity of a former student who filed a lawsuit claiming the administration knew or should have known about his sexual abuse at the hands of a now-retired Kingston High School vice principal, who also taught biology, in the early 1980s.
Superintendent Paul Padalino, who issued a prepared statement during a Board of Education meeting Wednesday night, said the complainant in the case against William Dederick has not been identified to current staff members.
“The allegations in this complaint against our school district and a former teacher concerns events that allegedly occurred more than 35 years ago, while the plaintiff was a high school student, and allegedly commenced in private outside of school,” Padalino said.
“The complaint against the school district appears to be largely based upon a general claim that it should have known of either a propensity of a teacher to engage in sexual abuse of students or that the teacher engaged in such abuse,” Padalino added. “The matter has been referred to the school district’s attorneys and insurance company.”
The allegations contained in the lawsuit first were reported by the Freeman on Aug. 22.
Padalino said the lawsuit is in its earliest stages and that the former student “remains unidentified to us.”
The suit was filed in May under the name “John Doe” against Dederick, a Kingston resident who was employed at Kingston High School as a biology teacher and, later, as an administrator, over a period of more than 33 years before his retirement in 1999.
The complaint states that between June 1982 and 1984, the accuser was repeatedly lured by Dederick to an apartment to engage in oral sex. It also contends there were incidents in a private multimedia office with Dederick at Kingston High School during the student’s lunch period, free periods and during gym class.
Daniel Stabile, an attorney representing the accuser, on said Wednesday that his client will be “confidentially providing his true identity to the school district shortly, in accordance with the court’s standard practice.”
Stabile said Dederick “admitted he sexually abused many victims, so it is possible that, at this time, the school district is not aware of the specific identity of John Doe.”
“We first notified the school district of this matter in January, and we believe that a reasonable investigation by the school district would show that there was widespread knowledge of Dederick’s abuse of children generally,” Stabile said.
Stabile, in a written statement last week, said that the lawsuit “tells a heartbreaking story of childhood sexual abuse that occurred, on many occasions, on school property during regular school hours.”
Dederick’s attorney,
Dylan Gallagher, declined to say Wednesday whether current district administrators would know the name of the accuser.
“I can’t speculate as to what the district does know or doesn’t know,” he said. “I can only say it would be highly inappropriate for me to weigh in on this individual’s identity in any way, shape or form.”
Gallagher said the 78-year-old Dederick “maintains his innocence.”