Herricks school board approves settling former student's sexual abuse lawsuit, paying $2.25M
Herricks High School in New Hyde Park. The school district has reached a $2.25 million settlement with a former student who sued the district alleging sexual abuse by a school psychologist. Credit: Newsday / J. Conrad Williams Jr.
The Herricks school district has settled with a former student whose Child Victims Act lawsuit ended with a jury finding the district not negligent.
The district's Board of Education voted late Thursday to approve the settlement, stemming from claims brought by a man who said a longtime school psychologist sexually abused him as a child in the 1980s, and to approve increasing its 2025-26 budget by $2.25 million to pay for "the settlement of a certain Child Victims Act lawsuit."
Herricks residents approved a $144.5 million budget in May.
Attorney Jeff Herman, who represented the plaintiff at the March 2024 trial and sought $14 million in damages, confirmed to Newsday in an interview Thursday that he negotiated the settlement with the district after appealing the jury verdict.
WHAT NEWSDAY FOUND
- The Herricks school district has settled with a former student whose Child Victims Act lawsuit ended with a jury finding the district not negligent.
- The Board of Education voted late Thursday to approve the settlement, stemming from claims brought by a man who said a longtime school psychologist sexually abused him as a child in the 1980s.
- The school board also approved increasing its 2025-26 budget by $2.25 million to pay for "the settlement of a certain Child Victims Act lawsuit."
He declined to confirm the settlement amount, citing a confidentiality clause in the agreement.
Reached before the meeting, Herricks superintendent Tony Sinanis declined to comment.
Newsday reported last year that Herricks had paid $48.3 million to 27 former students to settle additional lawsuits filed under the Child Victims Act, a state law that temporarily cleared the way for people who say they suffered sexual abuse as children to seek damages. The window to file CVA lawsuits closed in 2021.
Herman said the settlement provides “closure” for the former student who testified about the abuse at the two-week trial.
“He did want and have his day in court, and he was able to tell his story, and that’s important in the healing process,” Herman said. “He feels, by settling the case, he feels vindicated.”
The Herricks district "continues to deny any liability in connection with the claims asserted in the Action," according to the board agenda item. It said it settled to "to avoid the burden, time, expense, and inherent uncertainty of further litigation, including appellate procedure."
The plaintiff, identified only by his initials in court papers, was one of 21 former Herricks students who filed lawsuits alleging school administrators did not do enough to protect them from being sexually abused by longtime school psychologist Vincent Festa.
The plaintiff's case was the only one that completed a trial. A jury of five women and one man deliberated for eight hours over three days before deciding the district did not act with reckless disregard despite reports that the psychologist sexually abused other students at the school in the prior decade.
After the verdict, Sinanis and board of education members wrote to Herricks parents, “We are pleased that justice was served fairly and impartially for all parties involved. Furthermore, we are pleased that programs and services offered to our students throughout the district will not be adversely affected by a substantial monetary judgment in this case.”
Thursday's board agenda item requesting an increase in the budget said the funding "will be appropriated from the current unassigned fund balance."
Newsday previously reported that Herricks paid $1.7 million in legal fees over nearly four years defending CVA cases, including $700,000 in the case that went to trial.
Suffolk police arrested Festa on sexual abuse charges in 1993, two years after he retired from Herricks, and he pleaded guilty in 1995 to sodomizing teenage boys and received 5 years' probation. He died in 2011 at age 82.
In the only other CVA case against a school district to complete a trial, a Suffolk jury awarded $25 million to a former student in November who alleged the Bay Shore district ignored reports that longtime third-grade teacher Thomas Bernagozzi sexually abused students.
A Suffolk County judge in March ordered a retrial unless both sides agree to a sharply reduced amount, suggesting $4 million.
Newsday's Nicholas Grasso contributed to this story.
Jim Baumbach is an award-winning investigative reporter at Newsday, where he has worked since 1998. He spent two decades in the sports department, where he covered every professional team and league, including events such as the Super Bowl and World Series.
