Posted on January 26, 2016 in Sexual Abuse

People need to know that state and district policies forbid teachers from spending time alone with students off site. The Bethel school board needs to do a better job enforcing these policies including making teachers and students aware of them.

By Nelson Oliveira

BETHEL — During a court hearing last week for a former Bethel teacher who sexually abused three children, the victims’ families told a judge that Brian Stroh seemed to them like a devoted friend.

He would take the boys to restaurants, concerts, sporting events, amusement parks and sometimes to his own house to play video games, according to court testimony.

"It all seemed so wonderful at the time," one mother said.

Stroh was "everyone’s favorite teacher," the woman’s husband wrote in a letter she read in court.

What those families didn’t realize was that the teacher was violating district and state policy — even before the sexual assault took place.

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 Posted on January 22, 2016 in Firm News

Previously, this blog discussed the fact that Connecticut residents who find themselves injured by a dangerous condition while on someone else’s property may have a claim for compensation. It was also touched on that it is usually the negligence of the property owner or person responsible for managing the property that gives rise to such a claim. But what exactly is ‘negligence’ and how would one know if any occurred in relation to a premises liability accident?

The first thing to understand about the term negligence is that it is rooted in the common law; that is, the legal precedent that has passed down through court cases from early English jurisprudence, which still informs some of the legal processes today. As such, much of it can be, and has been, modified by statutes and regulations.

Negligence is often described as an ‘objective’ standard. What this means is whether the property owner acted like a ‘reasonable person’ and the events that led to the injury were ‘reasonably foreseeable,’ rather than what the defendant might have actually been thinking at the time. This can get complicated in certain circumstances, but this is generally seeking to illustrate whether a property owner acted reasonably in a specific situation.

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 Posted on December 31, 2015 in Car Accidents

There are few things more eye opening than the suddenness of a Bridgeport car crash. Victims of an automobile collision often describe the event as happening very quickly with little to no time to react to the situation. When a victim is injured and harmed by a negligent driver, there are legal options available. Pain and suffering is just one possible category of retribution for those who have suffered serious injuries in a car accident.

What is considered pain and suffering retribution after a car crash? Pain and suffering is a monetary award that is used to offset expenses for past, present and future physical pain from an injury suffered in a car accident.

In order to value pain and suffering in terms of money, the judge or jury considers certain factors such as the cause of the injury, future pain associated with the injury, the severity of the injury and how long the victim will be in pain because of this injury. Some jurisdictions allow the deciding party to assume bodily injury during unconscious times and periods of consciousness, while some only allow the latter.

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 Posted on October 15, 2015 in Firm News

Michelle Sulzicki, a teacher at the Chapel Elementary School in Stratford, CT, has been arrested and charged with sexually assaulting one of her students. It is alleged that she began sexually assaulting the boy when he was 12. Police sources have indicated that the boy, who is now 15, will undergo testing to determine if he is the father of Ms. Sulzicki’s 5 month old child.

The teacher, 28-year-old Michelle Sulzicki, who taught special education at Chapel Elementary School in Stratford the past four years, surrendered at the town police department Wednesday morning.

Her husband, a music teacher in the Danbury school system, stood beside her with the baby in his arms as Sulzicki was charged with first-degree sexual assault, second-degree sexual assault, illegal sexual contact with a minor and risk of injury to a minor.

Police said the boy told them he had sex with Sulzicki 20 times, beginning when he was 12. He also told them he believes he is the baby’s father, police said.

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 Posted on September 25, 2015 in Sexual Abuse

By law in Connecticut, people in certain professions and occupations that have contact with children or whose primary focus is children must report suspected child abuse or neglect (CGS § 17a-101). These are called mandated reporters and they must make the report when, in the ordinary course of their employment or profession, they have reasonable cause to believe or suspect that a child under age 18 has been abused, neglected, or placed in imminent risk of serious harm (CGS § 17a101b). A mandated reporter whose failure to report is intentional, willful, or
reckless may be subject to criminal penalties and fines of up to $2,000.

A mandated reporter is a professional who, through the course of their regularly assigned duties and professional tasks associates and has contact with children, suspects that a child is suffering abuse or neglect. Under current law, any individual paid to take care of children at a facility licensed by the State of Connecticut such as a childcare center is a mandated reporter. Additionally, if while performing their professional duties healthcare providers such as doctors, nurses, dentists, mental health professionals, sports coaches, teachers, school officials, law enforcement personnel, emergency medical technicians, members of clergy, and psychologists suspect child abuse is occurring, they are required to report it. Connecticut General Statute Sec. 17a-101 has a comprehensive list of who a mandated reporter is.

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 Posted on January 29, 2015 in Firm News

Hospitals are places where the sick go to heal and get better. No one expects to be a victim of a sexual assault while they are ill and in a vulnerable state. Our Bridgeport, Connecticut, residents may find it alarming to learn that recently, a former patient at St. Vincent’s Medical Center in Bridgeport has filed a civil lawsuit against the hospital. According to the lawsuit, the former patient is alleging that a nursing assistant employed by the hospital sexually assaulted him during his stay at the hospital. He is seeking nearly $25 million in damages.

Court documents filed specifically note that sometime in 2014, while the man was hospitalized for over a month due to a life-threatening illness, he awoke one day to the nursing assistant stroking his genitals. The former patient further notes that because of his illness, he was heavily medicated, in a semi-conscious state, vulnerable and unable to defend himself.

Following the alleged incident, the former patient reported the incident and shortly thereafter, the nursing assistant was arrested. In fact, according to reports, the nursing assistant admitted to police that he had sexually abused several other patients during the three years that he was employed with the medical center.

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 Posted on October 06, 2014 in Sexual Abuse

Two men are suing a former long-term substitute gym teacher at John Wallace Middle School alleging that he repeatedly sexually assaulted and abused them at the school 24 years ago.

The lawsuit also names the school system as a defendant, charging that officials failed to act on warning signs that gym teacher James Brown was abusing students.

In 2002, Brown was convicted of molesting boys when he was a gym teacher at St. Mary’s School in Newington and sentenced to two years in prison.

Superintendent William C. Collins said Wednesday that the lawsuit was a surprise and has been turned over to the school system’s lawyers.

"Nothing will be swept under the rug," Collins said. "Everything will be made public. We’re going to cooperate fully."

The alleged assaults took place in the locker room showers during the 1989-90 school year when the men were 12 and 13, said their attorney, of Tremont Sheldon P.C. of Bridgeport. Attorney said she believes there are more victims.

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 Posted on January 23, 2014 in Sexual Abuse

Two and a half years after he was removed as pastor of a New Fairfield church for allegedly sexually harassing a female church employee, Monsignor Martin Ryan was appointed pastor of a Stratford Roman Catholic church. Ryan’s appointment Saturday at Our Lady of Grace Church prompted numerous calls from parishioners who said they were shocked to learn that their new spiritual leader was a priest who not only had been removed from a prior job, but had previously been accused of molesting a teenage girl in Trumbull in the 1970s. In that case, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Bridgeport agreed to pay a settlement to the complainant, even though Ryan denied the allegations.

Diocese spokesman Brian Wallace said Ryan has been working as an administrator at the Stratford church for more than two years and replaces the church’s former pastor, who died. "After the problem in New Fairfield, he did undergo counseling and spiritual therapy and he has been embraced by the parish," Wallace said. "He has worked very well rebuilding the parish." That’s little comfort for John Marshall Lee, spokesman for Voice of the Faithful, an organization of local parishioners brought together in response to the sex scandals that have rocked the Catholic Church. "This is the type of thing that erodes trust in the church," he said."In addition to supporting the victims of sexual abuse by priests, the second goal of Voice of the Faithful is to support priests of integrity, and anything that diminishes the role of the priest is difficult for the whole community." This comes just days after the Archdiocese of Chicago, one of the largest and most influential in the U.S., agreed to make public more than 6,000 pages of documents showing that it concealed sexual abuse by priests for decades, including moving priests to new parishes where they molested again. "This is another example of the (Bridgeport) diocese turning a blind eye to past history, which is very disturbing," said Attorney, whose law firm, Tremont Sheldon P.C., represented more than two dozen people and who won multi-million-dollar settlements from the diocese for abuse claims, including the one against Ryan. "It’s sad, considering they supposedly have all these policies in place," Atorney said. Ryan was unavailable for comment Wednesday. Ryan, who had been pastor of St. Edward the Confessor Church in New Fairfield since 1992, was removed from the church in June 2011 by diocese officials after acknowledging he had sent "inappropriate" emails to a female parish employee. At the time ,Wallace said there was no allegation or evidence of any sexual conduct. In an interview in June 2011 with the Connecticut Post, the 49-year-old woman, whose name is being withheld, claimed she first complained to diocese officials in March that Ryan was acting inappropriately toward her. Diocese officials confirmed Wednesday they did get the complaint in March 2011. The woman, who had resigned from her job with the church, said Ryan touched her inappropriately on a number of occasions in the church office and sent her inappropriate emails. She said she twice asked him to keep their relationship at an appropriate business level. "I had just gone through a divorce, and I guess I was an easy target for him," she said. She said she became frustrated when the diocese did not immediately remove Ryan, but instead offered to have him apologize to her. "They fully intended to sweep the whole thing under the rug," she said. "If the diocese had come forward and said `we accept what you say and we are taking immediate action,’ I wouldn’t be speaking to you now." Wallace said Wednesday that during that period, Ryan had experienced the death of his mother, his sister and a close friend. "At the time, he needed to reconstitute his priesthood and his life." The diocese previously settled a claim by a woman who alleged in a lawsuit that she was molested by Ryan in the rectory of St. Theresa’s Church in Trumbull in the 1970s when the woman was 15 or 16. In her lawsuit, the woman said she was in the rectory when Ryan called her into his office. "He said he had to show me something in his office," she stated in court papers. According to court documents, when she entered his office, the woman claimed Ryan grabbed her and began French kissing her. She said he fondled her breasts through her clothes, court documents state. When she tried to pull away, the woman said Ryan responded: "Isn’t this something you always wanted?" "I said, `No,’ and I was fighting to get away and he said, "This is all your fault, so you better not tell anyone." The woman said she broke free and ran away, finally stopping to sit beneath some trees where she began sobbing uncontrollably. She said she told a girlfriend, who then told her the same thing had happened to her. She said diocese lawyer Michael Dolan later told her he had located her friend, who, along with her sister, claimed Ryan abused them. She said diocesan officials told her Ryan was having "issues with celibacy, " court documents state. The Bridgeport Diocese also was roiled in early 2013 when Kevin Wallin, a cross-dressing, sexually active priest was indicted and pleaded guilty to federal charges involving dealing crystal methamphetamine.

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 Posted on May 08, 2013 in Sexual Abuse

A Catholic priest faces five years in prison after he admitted in Superior Court on Thursday that he had child pornography on his computer and chatted about sex on the Internet with underage boys. The Rev. Michael Miller, 43, of Berlin, pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography, obscenity and three counts of risk of injury to a minor before Judge Hillary Strackbein. He is expected to be sentenced July 9 to a prison term of 20 years, suspended after five, followed by 20 years of probation. He used church computers for some of the crimes, his lawyer, William St. John, said outside the courtroom. But St. John said his client was never accused of touching boys. "He’s extremely remorseful," St. John said. "There are a lot of people who love this guy." He wouldn’t let the priest talk to the media. Miller will never function as a priest again, said Maria Zone, spokeswoman for the Archdiocese of Hartford. He was a pastor at St. Paul Roman Catholic Church in Berlin, and his victims were church members, students at the church’s school or both. He was suspended from public ministry as soon as police told the church about the allegations, Zone said. According to a warrant for Miller’s arrest, a woman contacted police on July 2, 2011, after learning about a Facebook conversation the priest was having with her 13-year-old son. The priest commented that some professional wrestlers had "nice butts," the mother said. She looked up past Facebook chats between the two and learned that the priest had made comments about the boy being in puberty and about how the priest is "addicted to porn" and pleasures himself, the warrant states. The priest also invited the boy to come over and watch a "dirty movie" so they could "have some fun," and also wrote in "extreme detail" about sex acts he would perform on the boy, the warrant says. Miller was arrested on July 11, 2011. Police also learned about a 16-year-old victim from a social worker. After interviewing that boy, police learned that the priest had emailed to the teen — from a church computer — videos of an unknown person masturbating, according to prosecutor Christian Watson and court documents. Investigators later identified more teens with whom Miller had inappropriate Facebook chats during an computer analysis conducted at the New Britain Police Department. There were seven all together. They learned that Miller called another teen — a 15-year-old, according to another warrant — "sexy," and also told the teen that he engaged in sex acts with members of the priest’s soccer team, Watson said. Miller told another juvenile that he was bisexual, the warrant states. That boy told police that the priest started out talking about online video games, school and sports, but gradually moved on to sexual topics. The computer examination also turned up five pornographic videos of children, including one with boys ages 6 to 10 performing sex acts on each other and another involving a younger girl and an adult. Miller was arrested again on June 14, 2012. In a joint statement, the archdiocese and Miller’s order, the Franciscan Friars Conventual, said Miller’s guilty pleas follow "many months of personal deliberation, reflection and prayer. During this time, Miller has received medical treatment and undergone therapy. "We hope that Miller’s plea will give some solace and closure to the minors he violated — and their families. We will continue to pray for them so that they will continue to heal from this regrettable experience." The Hartford Courant, Christine Dempsey

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 Posted on February 01, 2013 in Firm News

This article was a feature story in The New York Times Magazine last week. It speaks of victims of child pornography and possible restitution they may receive.  The story features 2 victims and their struggles into adulthood. The detective spread out the photographs on the kitchen table, in front of Nicole, on a December morning in 2006. She was 17, but in the pictures, she saw the face of her 10-year-old self, a half-grown girl wearing make-up. The bodies in the images were broken up by pixelation, but Nicole could see the outline of her father, forcing himself on her. Her mother, sitting next to her, burst into sobs.

The detective spoke gently, but he had brutal news: the pictures had been downloaded onto thousands of computers via file-sharing services around the world. They were among the most widely circulated child pornography on the Internet. Also online were video clips, similarly notorious, in which Nicole spoke words her father had scripted for her, sometimes at the behest of other men. For years, investigators in the United States, Canada and Europe had been trying to identify the girl in the images.

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