Settlement in shock-therapy case

The founder of a private Boston-area school that used electric skin shock on students -- many from the New York metropolitan area -- agreed Wednesday to sever connections with the school in a legal settlement with Massachusetts authorities.

Matthew Israel, executive director of the Judge Rotenberg Educational Center in Canton, Mass., will quit his post June 1 and serve five years' probation, Massachusetts officials confirmed. The school enrolls 231 residential students with emotional and behavioral problems, including about 130 from New York State.

A Massachusetts grand jury had indicted Israel on charges, including destruction of videotape evidence, after a 2007 incident in which two students wrongfully accused of misbehavior were given dozens of shocks as punishment. Israel has denied any wrongdoing.

"We believe that Dr. Israel created a system and environment at the JRC that failed to prevent a lapse of this magnitude," said Attorney General Martha Coakley. She added that the appointment of an independent state monitor for the school "should ensure better protection for students."

Ernie Corrigan, a spokesman for Israel and the school, responded, "Our position, then as now, is that Dr. Israel did nothing wrong, but that he's protecting the institution."

In June 2006, New York State's Education Department reported that Rotenberg students were subjected to shocks for minor offenses, denial of meals and other treatment that threatened "health, safety, privacy and dignity."

However, dozens of parents contended the center had succeeded in stopping their children's self-destructive behavior after other schools failed. In September 2006, a federal judge reinstated shock treatments for 45 New York students at the parents' requests, after state authorities attempted to block this. At the time, the school received about $50 million a year in New York State tuition payments.

On Wednesday, Kenneth Mollins, a Melville attorney who once represented a Freeport mother in a lawsuit against the school, called for withdrawal of all New York students from the school. Jonathan Burman, a spokesman for the State Education Department, declined to comment.