A Pedophile in Plain Sight, Gang of men who groomed young girls

A Pedophile in Plain Sight
By ERIC L. LEWIS January 12, 2013

JUST after Christmas, Poly Prep Country Day School, the venerable Brooklyn institution, settled a lawsuit alleging a more than 40-year cover-up of the predatory pedophilia of its legendary football coach, Philip Foglietta. The terms of the settlement have not been disclosed, but the lawsuit charged that school administrators were repeatedly informed from the 1960s until his forced retirement in 1991 that Mr. Foglietta was sexually abusing boys — on campus, in his apartment and during trips. Mr. Foglietta, who died in 1998, fondled and raped dozens, if not hundreds, of children....

But many of us also knew that Coach Phil showered with the fifth graders. We knew that he hung around the locker room and checked that each of us had thoroughly rinsed off. Most of us knew he invited kids for car rides to Coney Island in his green Chevy Impala and for overnight stays at the apartment he shared with his mother. Most of those kids were young and small, often boys who had lost their fathers. He didn’t bother kids whose fathers were in local politics (my dad was in the State Senate) or allegedly high up in the mob (a couple of Gambino grandsons went to our school). Those boys were never offered a ride in the green Impala.

One of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit was the younger brother of a classmate. The brothers’ dad died suddenly in 1970, when my classmate and I were in seventh grade. Both brothers were slight; only the younger one played football. My classmate, Scott Smith, went to Cornell, made a fortune in finance, and is now Poly’s chairman of the board. His younger brother, Philip, never went to college and slid into multiple addictions. According to the lawsuit, he was sexually assaulted hundreds of times....

But there is little doubt that senior administrators were told about the abuse on multiple occasions. The lawsuit recounts specific meetings between boys, their parents, the headmaster and the athletic director. That athletic director, who went on to become dean of students and assistant headmaster, reportedly witnessed abuse in the showers and walked away. In 1991, the headmaster allegedly told one of the victims that Coach was a bitter, sick old man who should be left alone. Coach Phil was powerful, intimidating, successful, not to be trifled with. And so for a quarter-century, he freely abused vulnerable boys, virtually in plain sight....

Pedophilia remains endemic, a powerful, difficult-to-treat compulsion. Prosecutions are rare, and victims who come forward years later are often barred from court by inflexible rules. Statutes limiting lawsuits should be altered to recognize that these crimes emerge slowly. Every school should have an investigative protocol available to parents online. There should also be at least one experienced person in every institution to whom incidents can easily be reported on a confidential basis.

Sexual abuse of children presents itself in confusing, ambiguous ways, so pedophilia education should be a mandatory part of the curriculum, repeated in elementary, middle and high school, at age-appropriate levels of detail. Abused children need to understand that they have done nothing wrong, that it is safe to come forward....  
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/13/opinion/sunday/at-poly-prep-a-pedophile-in-plain-sight.html


Gang of men 'who groomed young girls for sex drove terrified victim, 14, to the woods at night and threatened to cut her head off'

    Nine men groomed and abused vulnerable girls, court hears
    Jury told they used 'extreme physical and sexual violence'
    Girls given so many drugs that they were 'barely aware', it's claimed
    One girl said she was forced to miscarry after home abortion
    The abuse was alleged to have taken place over eight years

by Arthur Martin and Keith Gladdis

15 January 2013

Girls as young as 11 were groomed and raped by a child sex ring before being sold to abusers across Britain, a court heard yesterday.

Nine men, mostly of Asian heritage, befriended vulnerable girls with gifts of perfume, alcohol and drugs before subjecting them to a 'living hell' for eight years.

The six girls were subjected to 'extreme physical and sexual violence' while they were repeatedly raped by numerous abusers.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2262723/Gang-men-groomed-young-girls-sex-drove-terrified-victim-14-woods-night-threatened-cut-head-off.html