Private school faces another suit

4th complaint filed alleging abuse by former teacher

NEW HAVEN — Allegations of sexual abuse and assault at Indian Mountain School in Lakeville were filed Friday in a federal lawsuit by an attorney representing a former student at the private school. The legal action is the fourth in three years to be filed against the school.

The suit was brought by a former student who now lives in Vermont and attended the school from 1977 to 1980 beginning when he was 12 years old. The civil action charges that former English teacher Christopher Simonds, now deceased, was a pedophile who preyed on vulnerable children in the school’s care.

The suit claims “Christopher Simonds sexually abused, assaulted, molested, exploited and threatened (plaintiff) when (he) was a vulnerable and defenseless boy at the school.” The plaintiff, whose name is not being released, is represented by attorney Antonio Ponvert, who also filed lawsuits against the school for other former students in 2016 and 2017.

In a statement about the allegations, Ponvert wrote “another brave victim of the school’s negligence has come forward seeking justice for the horrific abuse he suffered as a child.”

A school spokesperson did not return a request for comment about the lawsuit. Former headmaster Mark A. Devey in 2014 responded to an earlier lawsuit and said the school was “shocked and disheartened” by the allegations against Simonds.

“Because our first priority is to protect the health, safety, and well-being of the students here, it is deeply disturbing to learn that 30 years ago a student at IMS might have been abused,” Devey said in 2014. “We are looking into these allegations and we take them very seriously.”

Indian Mountain School is a member of the Connecticut Association of Independent Schools, an organization that offers accreditation to private schools, which aren’t governed by state oversight. The school received its latest accreditation review about three years ago, according to the association’s director, Douglas Lyons.

Lyons said the accreditation process “is the first line of defense” against sexual abuse allegations for member schools. He said schools must now document their processes for protecting students.

“We’re smarter now,” he said. “Back in the ’80s, when an accusation was made, we had a hard time believing it was true.”

Lawsuits filed against Indian Mountain School in 2015 and 2016 also accused Simonds of yearslong abuse of middle school students. The documents allege that the school failed and refused to stop teachers as well as the school’s headmaster from “predatory sexual assaults and pedophilia” inflicted on minor boys, “including fellatio, anal sex, sodomy, voyeurism, fondling and forced masturbation.”

The Connecticut Law Tribune reported in January that the school had settled three lawsuits brought by students who claimed they were also abused by Simonds in the 1980s.