Jury deliberates sex abuse case against Herricks schools involving ex-psychologist Vincent Festa

A Nassau County jury has been charged with delivering the first verdict in a Child Victims Act case against a Long Island school district, a decision that could potentially impact the financial outcome of dozens of unresolved cases across Nassau and Suffolk counties.

The jury in the case against the Herricks Union Free School District deliberated for about an hour Wednesday, after hearing closing arguments from attorneys for both the district and a former student who alleged he was sexually abused by a school psychologist beginning in 1989.

Deliberations will continue Thursday in the case, one of 21 claims filed under the CVA accusing Herricks High School administrators of ignoring reports that psychologist Vincent Festa, now deceased, abused students during his two-decade career with the district.

“This case is about someone having to rely on someone else to enforce safety rules to make them safe,” plaintiff’s attorney Jeff Herman of Herman Law in Manhattan told the jury. “ … We are suing the Herricks school district because they failed to follow the most basic safety rule and that is they didn’t forward reports and warnings that Festa was molesting kids.”

Attorneys for the plaintiff, identified only as J.G. in court records, outlined during closing arguments at least 10 instances that they believe should have caused the district to “stop, investigate and prevent” the abuse by Festa, who was allegedly referred to by staff and students as “Festa the Molester,” dating back at least a decade before the plaintiff attended the high school.

The plaintiff in the case before acting Supreme Court Justice Felice Muraca alleges his relationship with Festa began when he was a middle school student in the district and that the psychologist sexually abused him on four occasions during his ninth and tenth grade school years.

Herman asked the jury to consider at least $14 million in damages in the case.

While the district conceded during the two-week trial that Festa, who died in 2011 at the age of 82, sexually abused the plaintiff and other students, it has denied that school officials condoned his actions by ignoring reports from staff, students and parents.

“Vincent Festa must bear the full weight of responsibility for the evil things we heard [at trial],” argued Melissa Jampol, of Epstein Becker Green in Manhattan, attorneys for the district.

Jampol, who called the allegations against Festa “abhorrent,” questioned the credibility of witness testimony regarding the ways that abuse was reported to school officials and pointed to inconsistencies in their timelines.

Jampol also argued that Festa took great lengths to conceal the abuse and that the case must be viewed in terms of how officials would have responded and how parents would have reported abuse allegations in the 1980s, not today.

“It was a very different time,” Jampol said. “Parents are more involved in the lives of their children now.”

Herman, whose firm represents a majority of the Herricks plaintiffs, said parents still took issue with the sexual abuse of children in the 1980s and he lined a board in the courtroom with cards showing the images of school officials who, witnesses said, received reports of abuse by Festa.

“The district has discounted kids, calling them liars and saying they came from broken homes,” Herman told the jury. “They don’t believe [the plaintiff] today. It’s the same thing they did in 1989.”

The district previously paid $1.25 million to settle four CVA cases involving Festa, with the settlement amounts ranging from $50,000 to $800,000, according to documents Newsday obtained from the school district under the Freedom of Information Law request.

Another two CVA lawsuits against Herricks have settled but the district has not yet responded to Newsday’s records requests regarding those suits.

Another case reached a tentative settlement last week on the third day of the trial, according to state Supreme Court Justice Leonard Steinman. The school board has not yet approved that agreement.

For this 2023-24 school year, Herricks set aside $2.1 million for “claims and judgments” in its voter-approved budget. The board of education has added $3.5 million to the fund in recent months, specifically citing the need to pay for Child Victims Act lawsuits. The board approved adding $2 million in February and $1.5 million at its meeting last week.

But the outcome of the trial should also have an impact on settlements and judgments in other CVA cases against Long Island districts, experts say.

A Newsday investigation found 27 Long Island school districts 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. About 100 CVA lawsuits against public school districts on Long Island are still pending.

State lawmakers in 2019 passed the Child Victims Act, which allowed childhood survivors of sexual abuse a one-year window to file a lawsuit for damages. Then-Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo extended the window a year, to August 2021, because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Before the law's passage, survivors were prevented from filing suit once they turned 23.

The allegations against Festa span 18 years from 1973 to 1991. He 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.