YU Sex Abuse Scandal: Twelve Students Join $380m Suit

Lawsuit widens as YU seeks dismissal of case; number of plaintiffs grows to 31.

Aug 7, 2013

Twelve more former students of Yeshiva University High School for Boys who claimed that they were molested by staff members have joined a $380 million lawsuit against the school.

The additional cases were revealed in court papers revealed in a hearing on Tuesday, according to the New York Daily News.

The plaintiffs’ attorney Kevin Mulhearn said the number of alleged victims in the suit now stands at 31. Last month, the initial claim, filed in U.S. District Court in White Plains, N.Y., alleged a “massive cover-up of the sexual abuse of [high school] students … facilitated, for several decades, by various prominent Y.U. and [high school] administrators, trustees, directors, and other faculty members.”

Some of the alleged assaults were said to have taken place as far back as the 1970s. Even though sexual abuse cases in New York must be brought forward before a victim’s 23rd birthday, Mulhearn is arguing that the alleged cover up negates the statute of limitations.

“In all candor (it) is a very old case,” defense attorney Karen Bitar told Manhattan Federal Court Judge John Koeltl on Tuesday, the Daily News reported.

Rabbis George Finkelstein and Macy Gordon, both former staff members of YU’s Manhattan high school for boys, have been named in a series of articles in the Forward. A third man, Richard Andron, 67, a former youth volunteer who now lives in Florida, has been accused of abuse, along with the two.

Many former Yeshiva University administrators and staff are named in the suit, including Rabbi Norman Lamm, who was president of the university from 1976 to 2003. Lamm retired as its chancellor on July 1. In a letter announcing his retirement, Lamm acknowledged making mistakes in his handling of abuse allegations when he led Yeshiva University.

Read more at the Forward

Yeshiva University's David H. Zysman Hall.Credit: Wikimedia Commons