Former Bay Shore teacher Thomas Bernagozzi denies sexual abuse allegations

A retired Bay Shore third-grade teacher accused of sexually abusing dozens of students denied the allegations Monday, hours before the jury heard the plaintiff suing the district for failing to prevent the alleged abuse say the teacher was "a monster" who touched him more than a dozen times per week.

Thomas Bernagozzi, 75, of Babylon, told the jury seated before Suffolk Supreme Court Justice Christopher Modelewski in Riverhead that he never molested his students or tried to deceive parents through after-school sports, plays and outings he led during his three decades with the district. Those programs, he said, were designed to enrich the lives of the students. Monday's testimony was the first time the former teacher spoke about the allegations.

"I didn’t go out of my way for the parents," Bernagozzi said from a room at the Suffolk County Jail, where he is awaiting trial for sodomy, sexual conduct against a child and possession of child sexual abuse material in a separate criminal case. "I did everything I did for the kids."

He has pleaded not guilty to the criminal charges.

The testimony came on the same day the plaintiff, identified only as P.L. in the Child Victims Act lawsuit, gave his account of the alleged abuse he said he endured as an 8- to 9-year-old student in Bernagozzi’s third-at grade class at Gardiner Manor Elementary School during the 1990-91 school year. It is one of 45 Child Victims Act claims against the district involving Bernagozzi, and the first to go to trial.

The plaintiff, trembling at times as he spoke, testified to instances when Bernagozzi allegedly sexually abused him in the classroom, a gym locker room, at a private health club, public park and beach. He said Bernagozzi fondled him as he applied powder down his pants following after-school sports or when he sat on the teacher’s lap during class, a stuffed animal blocking other students’ view of the alleged abuse. Bernagozzi touched him inappropriately 10- to 20 times a week in class and more than twice a week after school, he told jurors.

"The man was a monster," the plaintiff said. Newsday does not reveal the identify of victims of alleged sexual assaults.

Bernagozzi, his hair white since he’s been in jail, leaned into the computer as he strained to hear the questions posed to him by attorneys for the plaintiff and the district, which has filed a third-party claim against the teacher.

"What reason would I do that?" Bernagozzi said when asked if he ever applied powder to the plaintiff. "I didn’t have powder."

"To fondle him?" the plaintiff's attorney Jeffrey Herman, of Herman Law in Manhattan, asked in a follow-up question.

"Of course not," Bernagozzi said.

The ex-teacher also denied ever allowing students to sit on his lap.

"That’s just common sense," Bernagozzi said. "I didn’t have kids falling all over me. We’re in a classroom."

Bernagozzi acknowledged taking the students on trips to a health club, Jones Beach and New York City, where he said they interviewed famous people for the former Kidsday section of Newsday. The plaintiff said he was never abused in New York City.

The ex-teacher said the outings usually involved male students and they were done so with permission of the parents. He acknowledged he was usually alone with the boys during these activities.

Asked by Herman if he "loved kids," Bernagozzi said he loved "working" with them.

"It was a great experience," Bernagozzi told the jury. "It was tiring and a lot of work, but I tried to do as much as I could for the class to be exposed to all kinds of ideas."

"I wanted them to know why they were learning things," he continued. "I enjoyed watching the kids grow and become confident in themselves."

But the plaintiff testified the enjoyment he got from Bernagozzi’s class was short-lived, saying the alleged abuse started almost immediately.

When pressed by attorney Lewis Silverman, of Silverman and Associates in White Plains, on inconsistencies between his accounts of the abuse at trial and in his deposition years earlier, the plaintiff said he has "spent a lot of years trying to forget what [Bernagozzi] did to me."

A female classmate, Kristen Fraccalvieri Nicklas, also took the stand, saying the plaintiff told her about the powder while they were students in the school and made a comment suggesting Bernagozzi was a "child molester" when they were in high school. Nicklas also spoke of Bernagozzi sitting male students on his lap. 

Bernagozzi said if there were ever any allegations of abuse against him while he was employed as a teacher, a record would have been kept in his file.

And at one point, as tensions ran high and legal arguments piled up on the trial’s third day, Silverman motioned for a mistrial, saying Herman referenced a report from the early 1970s being removed from the teacher’s file, an allegation raised in a memo that was not allowed in evidence. The judge instructed the jury to disregard the comment.

The issue of whether the Bay Shore school district had actual notice of abuse by the teacher before the alleged abuse in 1990-91 is central to the case. On Friday, the jury heard from the mother of an anonymous plaintiff in a different Child Victims Act claim against the district, who said she told a principal her son was molested by Bernagozzi in 1987. Two other parents said they reported concerns in the mid-1980s about the extra attention Bernagozzi gave their sons, but that they were unaware of actual abuse.

Robby Hubbard, 60, who was in Bernagozzi’s third-grade class in Bay Shore in 1972-73, said the district was made aware of an incident in the late 1980s, when he saw Bernagozzi at an event where he was working security and shouted at him calling him a "pedophile."

Hubbard, who has also filed a Child Victims Act lawsuit against Bay Shore, also alleges Bernagozzi sexually abused him.

"I lost my mind," Hubbard said of that night. "I wanted to kill him." 

Bernagozzi denied that incident ever happened.

Hubbard said he was assured by the district’s head of security at the time, John Thomas, who is now deceased, that he would inform the administration of the allegations. But he said he never heard from the district.

Bernagozzi wore a green Suffolk County Correctional Facility V-neck pullover during his testimony on Monday. His attorney, Samuel DiMeglio, of Huntington, objected to his client’s attire and the room where he was placed within the jail, saying he had requested the judge order Bernagozzi to be placed in street clothes and testify from inside the jail’s chapel, as to not be prejudiced. Modelewski said that while he submitted the order, he "cannot control what the sheriff’s department does."

A sheriff’s deputy told Modelewski the former teacher, who has not posted the $1 million bail set by the judge overseeing his criminal case, couldn’t be placed in street clothes provided by his attorneys as a matter of policy. A sheriff’s deputy ultimately displayed an artificial background showing what looked like an office space behind Bernagozzi to make it less obvious to the jury that he was testifying from jail. 

Witness testimony is expected to end Tuesday. The defense will call current Bay Shore Superintendent Steven Maloney.

By Grant Parpan

grant.parpan@newsday.com@GrantParpan

Grant Parpan covers Suffolk County courts and federal courts for Newsday. A Long Island native, he joined Newsday in 2022.