The Claremont School District denies that it failed to protect a young disabled student from being sexually assaulted by a substitute teacher during a field trip nearly two years ago.
The former substitute teacher, George Caccavaro, 79, pleaded guilty to simple assault but in his response to a lawsuit “denies ever sexually assaulting” the student.
In separate documents this month, the school district, Caccavaro and two school officials responded to the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in September by the woman’s guardian over the assault that occurred in 2019.
Caccavaro, a former Claremont mayor and CEO of Cone-Blanchard in Windsor, was accused of grabbing the woman’s buttocks and grinding his body against the woman, who was 20 at the time and a special-needs student in the Stevens High School Life Skills program.
He was originally charged with two misdemeanor counts of sexual assault but pleaded guilty in March to two counts of simple assault and was sentenced in August to two months in jail, with the rest suspended. He was released in September.
In the complaint, the guardian claimed Caccavaro had been “grooming” the young woman before the assault and blamed the school district, as well as Life Skills program instructor Kelly Fontaine and Stevens High School Principal Patricia Barry, for not intervening to protect her. The complaint also accused the district of violating her rights under federal disability law.
Donna Feeney, an attorney for the school district, denied most allegations, but wrote “admitted” in response to the assertion by the woman’s guardian that Caccavaro took a “perverted sexual interest” in the student prior to the incident and that he was fired for inappropriate contact.
The district also acknowledged that the school principal had learned about an earlier incident in 2018 when Caccavaro kissed the young woman on the head or cheek, but denied that it constituted sexual assault.
Feeney wrote that the blame for the incident lies with other people “for whom these Defendants had no control or obligation to control” and requested the claims against the district be dismissed.
Caccavaro, through his attorney George Ostler, claimed no sexual assault took place and denied that he was fired over the incident. In his 10-page response, Ostler disputed almost all of the guardian’s claims and requested a jury trial in the case.
Fontaine and Barry, who were also named individually in the lawsuit, filed responses this month denying any wrongdoing.
Anna Merriman can be reached at amerriman@vnews.com.