Decades of sex abuse allegations rocked elite Ojai boarding school. But no charges filed
A criminal investigation into decades of allegations of sexual abuse at one of California’s most prestigious private schools has concluded without charges filed.
Detectives’ and prosecutors’ case-by-case efforts to look into the dozens of allegations at the Thacher School in Ojai were hampered by a number of issues, including statutes of limitations and the school’s decision in 2020 to hire a private law firm to investigate the incidents, the Ventura County sheriff’s and district attorney’s offices said Wednesday in a joint statement.
Last year, in an extraordinary public disclosure, the elite boarding academy posted a report on its website compiling accounts of alleged rape, groping, unwanted touching and inappropriate comments dating back 40 years. The 90-page document identified six alleged perpetrators by name and recounted alleged efforts by former school administrators to cover up complaints and blame teenage victims.
Though the statute of limitations had expired in most of the cases reviewed by detectives and prosecutors, authorities this week sought to highlight problems caused by the report from the Los Angeles law firm Munger, Tolles & Olson and the school’s decision to publicly release the firm’s findings before law enforcement could investigate.
“When suspects are alerted to potential crimes in a public report before law enforcement involvement, the likelihood of gathering statements from those suspects to corroborate or negate allegations becomes exceedingly difficult,” according to the statement.
A former student at the Thacher School is suing the prestigious Ojai boarding school, alleging she was repeatedly sexually abused by a counselor and soccer coach.
Suspects can decline to be interviewed, refer inquiries to attorneys or take steps “to avoid law enforcement notification and contact altogether,” all of which took place during the Thacher investigation, authorities said.
A spokesperson for Munger, Tolles & Olson did not respond to a request for comment Wednesday night.
The law firm and the school “were cooperative in providing materials” to detectives and prosecutors, authorities said. From July to December 2021, Munger, Tolles & Olson delivered more than 1,000 electronic files to the Sheriff’s Office documenting the firm’s administrative investigation into the Thacher School.
Detectives identified about 100 criminal cases that required follow-up, stretching as far back as the 1960s and including “a few cases that became known during the 2021 school year,” authorities said.
Most were found to be past the statute of limitations based on an initial reading of Munger, Tolles & Olson’s report. Still, authorities reviewed every case in an attempt “to uncover facts triggering the longest statute of limitations available,” according to the statement. Detectives gave every victim an opportunity to discuss and report their abuse, and to receive survivor benefits and resources, and investigators completed a report for every affected student, authorities said.
Only three cases were submitted to the district attorney’s office for filing consideration this year, but prosecutors declined to file charges “due to the expiration of the statute of limitations,” according to the statement.
“The remaining cases were not submitted to the district attorney’s office because they fell clearly outside the statute of limitations, the victims sought no prosecution, or no crime could be established,” authorities said.
While the Sheriff’s Office looked into the individual allegations of sexual assault, the district attorney’s office looked into whether school administrators had failed to report suspected abuse as required by law.
A report has excavated open secrets and long-buried trauma at the exclusive Thacher School, concluding it failed to protect its students.
District attorney’s office investigators and prosecutors examined more than 50 incidents for possible failure to report child abuse crimes, reviewing materials provided by Munger, Tolles & Olson and interviewing victims and school employees, according to the statement. In each instance, they determined that charges couldn’t be filed.
In most cases, authorities said, the statute of limitations had expired, school employees were not aware of the abuse, or there was no underlying crime to trigger mandated reporting requirements. In some cases, school administrators made timely reports of suspected abuse to law enforcement, prosecutors found.
During the investigation, the district attorney’s office’s Juvenile Unit filed a criminal case in Juvenile Court for an alleged crime that occurred on campus, but the case is not related to the sexual abuse allegations that were being investigated, authorities said.
The criminal inquiry began nearly a year after Thacher School trustees in August 2020 hired Munger, Tolles & Olson to conduct an investigation spurred by an alumni social media campaign that included the Instagram account @rpecultureatthacher. The account described itself as “a safe space” for those victimized at the school. The law firm’s investigation included interviews with more than 120 former students, parents, and current and former faculty and staff.
The allegations of misconduct and inappropriate “boundary crossing” at the Thacher School date to the 1980s.
About a week before publicly releasing the report in June 2021, a Munger, Tolles & Olson attorney and a Thacher administrator “delivered the initial notification” to the Sheriff’s Office, according to Wednesday’s statement.
The sheriff’s and district attorney’s offices said schools and other institutions that are made aware of past sexual assault allegations should contact law enforcement as early as possible, noting that in the Thacher investigation “the passage of time made many potential crimes both difficult to investigate and outside applicable statutes of limitations.”
Although no charges were filed, authorities encouraged victims of previously unreported sexual assaults at Thacher or elsewhere to contact law enforcement.
“The challenges inherent in the cases discussed here are not necessarily present in every unreported sexual assault case,” authorities said.
Prosecutors and the Sheriff’s Office recently created a cold case sexual assault unit, according to the statement, and victims of sexual assault can get support from Ventura County Family Justice Center whether they wish to report a crime to law enforcement or not.
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