Philip A. Foglietta, head football coach at Poly Prep Country Day School, Brooklyn, New York City, New York, serial child rapist Philip A. Foglietta died December, 20, 1998. He was never charged nor brought to trial. One victim eventually stepped forward and filed suit in 2004; that lawsuit in New York courts was dismissed due to the statute of limitations. Later twelve victims filed suit under federal racketeering (RICO) laws, and two of those claims were allowed to proceed. Social Security Death Index: For the complete story, read the articles tagged "Philip Fogietta" at the New York Daily News. Only key articles are summarized and linked below. Also search the archives at the New York Times: Philip Foglietta New York Daily News: Poly Prep settles lawsuit claiming football coach Phil Foglietta sexually abused hundreds of boys: Terms of the settlement were not disclosed, but each of the victims was seeking $20 million in damages (Dec 26 2012) Poly Prep Country Day School, one of New York's most prestigious private schools, has agreed to settle a landmark lawsuit claiming its longtime football coach sexually abused hundreds of boys over a 25-year period and that officials covered up the assaults for decades.The settlement ends a three-year legal and public relations battle that divided parents and alumni and turned the elite Brooklyn school into a symbol of institutional indifference to sexual abuse in youth sports. The explosive suit, filed in 2009, claimed officials at the Dyker Heights prep school knew that coach Phil Foglietta was a sexual predator, but ignored repeated complaints during his 25 years at the school because they didn't want to jeopardize the institution's athletic reputation and fund-raising efforts....Other plaintiffs say Foglietta abused them hundreds of times. One alleged Foglietta victim said he developed sores on his genitals after the coach assaulted him on almost a daily basis, beginning when he was 10 years old....The suit said Poly Prep officials had covered up the abuse since 1966, the same year they hired Foglietta, a dynamic coach who turned the college preparatory school into a New York City football power. Mulhearn has said that Foglietta used the positive press and alumni donations his football success generated to cement his authority at the school....A few months after Foglietta arrived at the school, the suit says, a student named William Jackson complained that the coach had sexually abused him. Parker and then-headmaster J. Folwell Scull, according to the suit, told Jackson's parents that he made up the allegations and threatened to expel him he raised them again. That was the beginning of a cover-up, Mulhearn has argued, that not only allowed Foglietta to rape and assault students for more than 20 years, but also prevented his clients from pursuing litigation against the school in a timely fashion. What I've quoted above barely scratches the surface. There's a lot more in the article. The enablers -- the New York Daily News articles highlight three key individuals who suppressed complaints and protected Philip Foglietta from any allegations that were made: Harlow Parker, athletic director J. Folwell Scull, headmaster, 1949-1970 William M. Williams, headmaster, 1970-2000 Tags:
New York Times: School Coach, Now Dead, Is Subject of Abuse Charges (Nov 16 2005) Mr. [John] Paggioli is just one of those boys, now men, who say there was a dark side to Mr. Foglietta's largess. They tell of steamy locker-room showers that masked his advances, of roughhousing that became groping and other physical acts that took them years to understand fully.David Hiltbrand, an entertainment reporter in Philadelphia, was once a promising athlete at Poly Prep who said he began avoiding sports and hating school in the wake of Mr. Foglietta's "massages." "It just freaked me out," he said. "I was scared and confused, and I didn't know who to go to. To me, he was the most powerful figure in the school, more so than the headmaster."...Mr. Paggioli declined to be interviewed before today's hearing, but in court papers he tells of mutual masturbation and reciprocal oral sex with Mr. Foglietta several times from 1970 to 1974, when Mr. Paggioli was a student. As a result, the complaint says, Mr. Paggioli, a real estate broker in New Jersey, has experienced permanent physical and emotional injuries that ruined his childhood and have hindered his ability to sustain relationships and get and hold onto jobs. Mr. Hiltbrand, who was an eighth grader in 1966 when Mr. Foglietta came to Poly, said that his encounters were limited to being fondled, both on and off school grounds. After practice, he said, Mr. Foglietta would corral the boys into the showers, where he would create an impromptu steam room. "Then he would, like, come up behind me and start, you know, touching and fondling me," Mr. Hiltbrand said, "and at first I was just absolutely shocked, I just couldn't believe it was happening because in addition to looking up to him personally, I just felt he was a sort of masculine ideal."
New York Post: Coach kid-sex charge: Suit rocks prestigious B'klyn prep school (Oct 27 2009) An elite Brooklyn private school long dogged by accusations that its football coach molested his players was slapped yesterday with a federal lawsuit by seven alumni alleging it covered up the sexual abuse for decades. The suit, filed in Brooklyn federal court, accuses the current and former headmasters of Poly Prep Country Day School in Dyker Heights of having known that the football coach, Philip Foglietta, abused "dozens, if not hundreds" of boys. "Poly Prep had . . . knowledge of Foglietta's sexual abuse of numerous boys at or near Poly Prep, but condoned and facilitated Foglietta's criminal behavior because he was a highly successful football coach and instrumental in raising substantial revenue for the school," the suit alleges. Accusations against Poly Prep first surfaced in 2005, when one alumnus, John Paggioli, sued the school. That suit was tossed because the state's statute of limitations -- five years from the date the victim turns 18 -- had passed. In the current suit, a civil RICO action, the plaintiffs -- five named and two John Does -- are claiming the school engaged in a conspiracy for some four decades to quash complaints by victims.
There's much more in the whole article ... New York Daily News: Lawsuit claims Poly Prep covered up iconic football coach Phil Foglietta's sex abuse of young boys for decades -- Poly Prep Sex Scandal: Part 1 of 2 (Dec 5 2011) The burly coach invited [David] Hiltbrand and a few other boys to shoot baskets in the school’s gym on a Saturday morning, and Hiltbrand says that is when the sexual abuse began. He took the boys into the coaches’ locker room to shower and told them they were going to give each other “massages.” Hiltbrand says Foglietta rubbed his shoulders and then placed his hand between Hiltbrand’s legs. Hiltbrand jumped away, into a corner and into the scalding water pouring out of a shower head. As Hiltbrand tried to regain his composure, he says he saw Foglietta — the man who mocked some teachers as “homos” — groping the other boys....[Phil Foglietta] doesn’t get much support from his closest living relative, a nephew who attended Poly Prep at the same time as Hiltbrand who says he is haunted by the accusations in the federal lawsuit. “David Hiltbrand was a gifted student, an amazing musician and a great athlete, and I have no reason to doubt him,” says the nephew, who asked that his name not be used in this story. “I’m not going to say these are unfounded allegations. I continue to have nightmares over this.”...“I can’t tell you how many times he raped me,” Doe III, who claims Foglietta’s anal and oral assaults began when he was 10 years old, said in an interview with The News. “He abused me so much I would get sores on my penis. I begged him to stop.”
New York Daily News: Poly Prep football players warned freshmen of coach Phil Foglietta's sex abuse, school threatened discipline against reports: lawsuit -- Part 2 of the explosive Poly Prep sex abuse scandal (Dec 7 2011) Poly Prep Country Day School football players warned their teammates. Juniors and seniors told the freshmen: Don’t get into the green Impala with Phil Foglietta, the football coach at the elite private school in Dyker Heights, Brooklyn. Don’t go to the empty visitors’ locker room with him. Don’t let him take you to the squash courts. But not everybody got the message ...He was 10 years old, John Doe III says, when the anal and oral assaults began. Foglietta, a short, stout man who worked at Poly Prep from 1966 to 1991, raped him hundreds of times between 1968 and 1972, sometimes twice a week, sometimes twice a day. The assaults, he told the Daily News in interviews, took place on the Poly Prep campus, in the green Impala, and at the Bay Ridge apartment the football coach shared with his elderly mother.
New York Times: At Elite Prep School, Abuse Case Won’t Go Away (Dec 9 2011) In a federal lawsuit, filed in Federal District Court in Brooklyn two years ago (and again in the public eye via a series of articles in The Daily News), Mr. Culhane and eight other Poly Prep alumni say the school engaged in epic levels of moral and practical mismanagement for decades, in regard to the perversions of a football coach, Philip Foglietta, who died in 1998. Mr. Culhane and the other plaintiffs say Mr. Foglietta repeatedly sexually abused them along with dozens of other students — in cars, locker rooms, houses and apartments, and on squash courts — during his tenure from 1966 to 1991.... When he and his parents brought the matter to the attention of J. Folwell Scull, the headmaster at the time, and the school’s athletic director, Harlow Parker, the suit says, they were told that Mr. Jackson’s charges were not credible and that if he continued with his accusations he would face severe consequences. Mr. Jackson developed behavioral problems that led to his expulsion from school; he never attended college. The suit suggests that the cases of student dismissal became horrifically repetitive. ... But at the very least, beyond the obvious likeness in context, there is an unsettling echo between the revelation at Penn State that an assistant coach witnessed Jerry Sandusky abusing a boy in the shower and did not go to the police, and the allegation in the Poly suit, by one of the unnamed plaintiffs, that Mr. Parker saw Mr. Foglietta abusing him in the shower and did nothing.
+1 plaintiff ... New York Daily News: Poly Prep grad David Zarnock, part of bombshell lawsuit against private Brooklyn HS, talks about horrific abuse -- End Zone: Lawsuit claims school knew Phil Foglietta was dangerous sexual predator (June 9 2012) David Zarnock remembers lying face down on the massage table, his eyes shut tight, every muscle in his skinny teen-age body tense. Zarnock still remembers hearing Phil Foglietta unzip his pants. Zarnock remembers the jingle of coins in the Poly Prep Country football coach’s pants pockets. Zarnock, a former New York cop, says Foglietta would fondle himself with one hand while he massaged the boy’s groin with the other. The abuse might go on for 15 minutes, maybe 20. The first incident occurred when he was in the eighth grade, in 1982. When the assault was over, Foglietta took the boy to a tavern, bought him a Coke and then drove Zarnock to his family’s Bay Ridge home.
Inquisitr: Jerry Sandusky Implicated In Child Porn Ring By Former ‘Child Prostitute’ (Sept 20 2012) In a letter he sent to Poly Prep authorities this week, [Greg] Bucceroni stated that he met Foglietta as a teen through Second Mile charity in Pennsylvania. Sandusky started the organization and also used it as a cover for years as a way to meet the boys he was convicted of sexually abusing. Bucceroni told authorities that he was a child prostitute used in a pedophile ring that included Sandusky, Foglietta, the late Philadelphia businessman Ed Savita, and former Wharton School of Business professor Lawrence Scott Ward.
UK Daily Mail: 'Child prostitute' ties Sandusky to prep school pedophile ring after he reveals he was 'paid for sex by rapist he met at charity run by Penn State coach' (Sept 20 2012) Phil Foglietta, deceased, accused of raping and assaulting students at Poly Prep school in Brooklyn, New York for 20 years Greg Bucceroni, now 48, sent email alleging he was used as a teenage prostitute by pedophile ring in tri-state area which included Sandusky Chilling similarities of cover-up by officials with Penn State scandal
Huffington Post: Jerry Sandusky Was Part Of Child Porn Ring, Greg Bucceroni, Former 'Child Prostitute' Claims (Sept 20 2012) The New York Daily News reports that on Monday, Greg Bucceroni, a self-described former child prostitute, sent an email to officials at Poly Prep Country Day School in Brooklyn. In the message, Bucceroni said he was associated with a child sex ring that included Sandusky and former Poly Prep football coach Phil Foglietta. The email said that, in 1979, Bucceroni was originally expected to have sex with Sandusky, but, because of time constraints, he was introduced to Foglietta instead.
UK Daily Mail: Boys abused by prep school football coach FINALLY get settlement as paedophile case that split families is closed (Dec 27 2012) Poly Prep Country Day School was accused of covering up late coach Phil Foglietta's sexual abuse of young boys Decision to settle lawsuit brings three-year-long legal battle to an end Plaintiffs wanted $20 million each but school has not revealed size of settlement
Point of contact for other victims of abuse at Poly Prep: White Tower Healing Foundation: Mission Statement The mission of the White Tower Healing Foundation is to create an openhearted and understanding community for survivors of childhood sexual abuse. It will offer a variety of services to help the survivors and their families find support, seek resolution and achieve peace of mind.The White Tower Healing Foundation was formed by a group of Poly Alumni in response to the sexual, mental and physical abuse perpetrated by Philip Foglietta during his tenure as Head Football Coach from 1966-1991 and to address the incalculable damage he inflicted. It is our goal to identify abused alumni and provide a safe haven for them to come forward; reconcile them with the Poly Prep Community; provide educational programs on detection and prevention and address the importance of reporting issues of sexual and other kinds of abuse – because the abuse of any child affects us all. The Foundation aims to help survivors of sexual abuse both within and outside of the Poly Prep Community. To make progress, however, we need the Alumni of Poly Prep to find the strength and courage to reach out to their fellow Poly Brothers and Sisters, to join those already assembling in growing numbers, to provide support and offer help to those victims of this unspeakable cruelty.
