Herricks school district reaches settlement with former student who alleged sexual abuse

The Herricks Union Free School District reached a tentative settlement Wednesday with a former student who alleged he was repeatedly sexually abused by a school psychologist in the 1980s, the judge presiding over a Child Victims Act trial told Newsday.

State Supreme Court Justice Leonard Steinman informed the jury Wednesday, on the third day of trial, the case has been resolved and their services would no longer be needed. The agreed upon settlement figure, which is pending board of education approval, was not disclosed publicly.

The trial in a separate CVA claim against the Herricks school district, which began last Thursday, is ongoing.

The cases are the first claims against a Long Island school district to go to trial under the CVA, which extended the deadline for when sexual abuse lawsuits could be filed during a two-year period ending in 2021.

Separate claims were filed against the Herricks school district by 21 former students who alleged they were abused by then-school psychologist Vincent Festa between 1973 and 1991. The district previously paid $1.1 million to settle four claims and 16 cases remain open, with several more trials scheduled in the coming months.

Deirdre Gilligan, a spokeswoman for the district's public relations agency, Syntax, said “the district has no comment at this time.”

During opening statements Monday, plaintiff’s attorney Jeff Herman, of Herman Law Group in Manhattan, said his client, identified in court as P.H., was seeking $10 million in damages.

Herman, who could not be immediately reached for comment Wednesday, told the jury the abuse against his client could have been avoided if administrators investigated Festa and removed him from the district when a Herricks High School principal was first made aware of the psychologist’s alleged conduct by a pair of students who said he sexually abused them in 1980.

In the years that followed, other students and staff at the school raised concerns about the psychologist, who Herman told the jury was referred to in school as “Festa the Molester.”

The plaintiff in the now-settled trial alleged in his complaint he was first abused by Festa as a freshman at the high school during the 1983-84 school year. He was sent to Festa after getting into trouble for acting out in his Spanish class, said Herman, whose firm represents most of the plaintiffs in the Herricks cases.

Festa shared pornographic magazines with the student while both pleasuring himself and fondling the teen, Herman said. The abuse continued into the following school year, he added.

“This little boy is molested by Festa dozens and dozens of times,” Herman told the jury.

Attorney Jessica Palmese, of Epstein, Becker & Green of Manhattan, which represented the Herricks school district in the case, told the jury the district has never “condoned or accepted child abuse.”

Festa was arrested by Suffolk police in 1993 after he was accused of sexually abusing six teenagers in his Ronkonkoma neighborhood. He pleaded guilty in 1995 to sodomizing the boys and was sentenced to 5 years probation and required to register as a sex offender. He died in 2011 at 82.

A Newsday investigation found 27 Long Island school districts have paid a combined $31.6 million to settle 42 Child Victims Act lawsuits by former students who say teachers, administrators and fellow students sexually abused them. The individual settlement amounts range from $5,000 to $8 million. Another 150 lawsuits are pending.