A former teacher and coach at the Immaculate Heart of Mary Church in Scarsdale is at the center of a recent lawsuit alleging that he sexually abused several male students while employed by the school decades ago. The Review has now learned that the accused has admitted to abusing two of the alleged victims.
In a lawsuit filed with the Westchester County Supreme Court on Nov. 7, 2019, Edwin “Ted” Gaynor, now 84, was accused of assault by David B. Fox, who claimed that Gaynor used his position as a physical education teacher at IHM to sexually abuse him from 1962-65. As of Dec. 11, 2019, 12 more accusers had stepped forward to join the suit, echoing Fox’s allegations of abuse and painting a timeline of sexual misconduct that stretched from 1959 to 1986.
Some of these accounts were corroborated in December when Gaynor, who has declined legal counsel, sent a series of handwritten communiqués to the law offices of Lowey Dannenberg, P.C.—which represents the 13 plaintiffs accusing the Ossining resident of abuse—that appear to be an admission of guilt to at least two of the claims of sexual abuse.
In a letter dated Dec. 12, 2019, Gaynor responded to allegations by a plaintiff identified as R.L. and recounted one incident of abuse that occurred in 1967 when the plaintiff was 11 years old.
“I was sitting at my desk with the telephone on the desk. R.L. wanted to call home and he sat on my lap to use the phone,” Gaynor wrote. “And there I molested him.”
Gaynor also admitted to sexual misconduct with another plaintiff, David Pisula, while employed by IHM. According to Pisula, he was between the ages of 12 and 14 when the alleged attacks took place.
“I was not unkind to him in a couple instances as claimed,” Gaynor also wrote. “But I was guilty of molestation, as in my report re: R.L.”
Another plaintiff, who joined the suit under the condition of anonymity, told The Review that Gaynor’s confessions did not surprise him, and said that the former teacher’s proclivities were no secret during his tenure at IHM.
“In a lot of ways it justifies the knowledge that we were right about him from the beginning,” he said. “Maybe he’s looking for repentance…but there is still a lot of anger and it’s literally no surprise to anyone that this came to light.”
Although Gaynor has denied some of the accusations, several plaintiffs—including R.L.—received letters from the former teacher years after the abuse was alleged to have taken place appearing to acknowledge at least some level of wrongdoing.
The plaintiff who spoke exclusively with The Review received one such letter more than two decades after his last encounter with the former teacher and said that learning of Gaynor’s correspondence with other former students helped to put the message in perspective.
“I couldn’t believe he had actually found me and I wondered if there was an ulterior motive behind the letter,” he said. “But after reading some of the other letters he sent to the people that he physically molested, I’m not sure if it was his way of rationalizing the relationship as something that was 50/50.”
Gaynor could not be reached for comment.
IHM and The Archdiocese of New York were also named as defendants in the lawsuit, which alleges that both the school and the church had knowledge of Gaynor’s actions and failed to take action.
Although most of the allegations in the suit stem from Gaynor’s time at IHM between 1962-69, one account took place in 1959, when he was teaching at St. Bernard’s in White Plains. The most recent allegation against Gaynor arose from his time as an assistant CYO basketball coach at IHM in 1986.
In a 2014 letter he wrote to one of the plaintiffs identified in the suit, Gaynor appears to intimate that he was forced out of his position at IHM sometime in 1987.
“Someone did a real job on me after my 3 years of coaching with [redacted] at IHM, and I think I know who started it,” Gaynor wrote. “It was ignorant, cowardly, and vicious. But so it goes.”
Several of the affidavits from the alleged victims outline that church officials were made aware of allegations against Gaynor throughout the 1960s. The original plaintiff in the case, David B. Fox, says that he confronted the Monsignor of IHM about Gaynor in 1968, but his claims were summarily dismissed. According to court documents filed on Nov. 7, 2019, “The Monsignor did not listen to Fox, instead he called him a liar and threw Fox out of his office.”
Both IHM and the Archdiocese of New York have denied any wrongdoing. On Jan. 27, attorneys from Rivkin Radler LLP—which represents the Archdiocese—filed a motion to delay the deposition of Gaynor until his competency to testify can be determined. The competency hearing is scheduled for Feb. 6 in Mineola, New York, after press time.
The plaintiff who spoke with The Review believes that the motion to suppress Gaynor’s testimony is simply a ploy by the Archdiocese to escape culpability for its role in the scandal.
“If you have knowledge that things are going on that are improper and you keep allowing him to have access to more and more kids, that’s insanity,” he said. “This could have been stopped at one kid, but if they had knowledge and this continued, they should be held accountable.”
