Anne Scott entered St. George’s School as a 10th-grader in 1977, just a few years after the prestigious prep school first admitted girls at its campus in Middletown, R.I. She was a good student, and a three-sport athlete, from the suburbs of Wilmington, Del. 
 
 But a month after she arrived, a field hockey injury brought her into the orbit of the school’s longtime athletic trainer. He molested and raped her, and threatened to come after her if she told anyone. 
 
 For years, terrified and ashamed, she did not. Finally, in her mid-20s, her life a shambles of diagnoses and hospitalizations, she told her parents, who took her to see Eric MacLeish, an attorney who would later gain renown representing abuse victims of Catholic priests. It was his first sexual abuse case. 
 
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 MacLeish filed a lawsuit seeking $10 million, but when the school pushed back aggressively, Scott backed off — and moved abroad to rebuild her life. 
 
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 This year, almost 40 years after she first arrived at St. George’s, Anne Scott felt strong enough to pursue her unfinished business with St. George’s. 
 
 Reunited with MacLeish, she has sought not money but accountability from the school — an end to what she and her attorney call a pattern of coverup and denial concerning the alleged sexual assaults of multiple students at the school in the 1970s and 1980s. They have urged the school to launch an investigation, to inform alumni of its findings, and to set up a therapy fund for victims. 
 
 “This was the school’s dirty secret,” said MacLeish. “They’re an educational institution with a mission statement of respect and compassion, and they acted in a way that is completely at odds with that.” 
 
 St. George’s officials didn’t act immediately on Scott’s demand, but they did act. Months after MacLeish and Scott voiced their concerns — and shortly after the Globe contacted the school for comment on the case — officials sent a letter on Nov. 2 to alumni saying they had received “multiple credible reports of sexual misconduct at the school, ranging from unprofessional behaviors to outright sexual assault” by former employees. It also named Scott’s assailant. 
 
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 It was a breakthrough moment. Scott’s courage has moved others to come forward this fall with their stories and their sorrows. And as the school completes its investigation, the full measure of this dark chapter may soon be known. 
 
 . . . 
 
 Stew Milne for The Boston Globe A view of the chapel and old school at St. George's School in Middletown, R.I. 
 
 Founded in 1896, St. George’s has educated several Astors and Vanderbilts, Howard Dean, and Prescott Bush, father of President George H.W. Bush. Today, it has 365 students in Grades 9 through 12 and charges $56,000 annual tuition for boarders. 
 
 It is the latest in a string of New England prep schools that have had to deal with allegations of sexual impropriety, including Deerfield Academy, Fessenden, and the Berkshire School. 
 
 At St. George’s, in the fall of 1977, Anne Scott had been sent for treatment of her back to Al Gibbs, the gruff, cigarette-smoking athletic trainer, who began to assault her in his locked training room. He told her that if she reported him to anyone, he would come after her and that she “would be in trouble,” according to court papers. When she objected, “the trainer threatened to send a note to her coach and adviser, requiring that [she] return for ‘treatments.’ ” 
 
 ST. GEORGE’S SCHOOL Al Gibbs, in a 1980 yearbook photo. 
 
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 Her grades dropped. She called her parents begging to come home. For a while, she simply stopped talking. “I just kind of stopped caring,” Scott said. 
 
 Her sister Liz, who is four years older, recalls those days vividly. “I remember we sent off a happy, healthy, vibrant girl and when she came home for Thanksgiving, she was definitely changed. She was withdrawn, anxious, obviously upset, but we didn’t have any idea why. It was very scary for the family.” 
 
 She returned to school and, Scott said, the assaults resumed. 
 
 According to her therapist’s affidavit in the 1989 lawsuit, she suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, dissociative disorder, anorexia, bulimia, and major depression because of the assaults and was hospitalized several times between 1983 and 1987. 
 
 When she filed her suit against the school, Scott faced a different kind of pain, in the tactics of St. George’s lawyers. They told the court that Scott either could be lying or could have had consensual sex with the trainer, who was 67 years old when the assaults began. She was 15. 
 
 Court records revealed that four other girls had told school authorities that Gibbs had also molested them, MacLeish said. 
 
 School attorneys also sought to change it from a “Jane Doe” case and reveal Scott’s real name. “Maybe people will come forward and say the plaintiff is a, with all due respect to those in the court, has a tendency to lie, and that would be relevant, also,” said defense attorney William P. Robinson III of the Providence firm Edwards & Angell. (In 2004, Robinson was appointed to the Rhode Island Supreme Court. Robinson did not return calls from the Globe.) 
 
 But Judge Jacob Hagopian of the US District Court in Rhode Island denied the school’s motion to dismiss and admonished its attorneys that the teenager could not consent to such “detestable” acts. “It violates the criminal laws of the United States,” he said. 
 
 In the end, it was Scott who dropped the case. School attorneys had investigated and deposed her parents and were preparing to depose neighbors. “I was 27 years old, I had struggled, and then they came down on my family like a ton of bricks,” she said. “I just wanted it all to go away.” 
 
 St. George’s would not agree to the dismissal unless Scott signed a gag order that prohibited her from speaking about the case. MacLeish advised against it. 
 
 “The school did everything they could to intimidate Anne,” said MacLeish, of the Cambridge law firm of Clark, Hunt, Ahern & Embry. “It worked.” 
 
 . . . 
 
 Stew Milne for The Boston Globe The school has 365 students in grades 9 through 12. 
 
 After she dropped the suit, Scott, who had earned a PhD in folklore and anthropology from the University of Pennsylvania, moved overseas. She and MacLeish lost touch. 
 
 But the case continued to haunt him. Over the years, he tried to find Scott, who was working in maternal health in the West Bank, in HIV/AIDS prevention in Senegal and Botswana, and for a nonprofit in Indonesia. Independently, MacLeish, himself an alumnus of St. George’s, contacted the school in 2012, writing current headmaster Eric Peterson about the lawsuit he had filed concerning events at the school under former headmaster Tony Zane. 
 
 Around the same time, in 2012 or 2013, Peterson heard from another alumna. “She had been abused by Mr. Gibbs,” he said in an interview. “She asked for help with counseling costs and we gave it.” 
 
 In 2013, Scott returned to the United States. She now runs a nonprofit in Virginia. “I’ve worked very hard to get strong,” said Scott, who is 52. “You live with it and you get better at managing it, but the damage runs deep.” 
 
 At Scott’s and MacLeish’s urging, the school sent two letters to alumni, in April and August, saying it was launching an investigation into possible sexual misconduct. Scott and MacLeish told the school that the letters failed to give specifics or offer relief to victims. 
 
 But the most recent letter, sent Nov. 2 and signed by Peterson and board chair Leslie Heaney, finally named Gibbs, who died at 86 in 1996. It also said there were two other perpetrators who no longer live in Rhode Island, but did not identify them. 
 
 The letter apologized for what happened and for the school’s failure to respond. It also said it will establish a fund for counseling costs related to the sex abuse and will arrange victims’ support gatherings. 
 
 Scott said that for her, the latest letter resolves the major issues. “I was really heartened by it and sensed a shift toward action and clear, concrete steps,” she said. 
 
 But she and MacLeish question the independence of the school’s investigation, which is being conducted by attorney Will Hannum, whose law partner is St. George’s legal counsel. “It’s an inherent conflict of interests,” MacLeish said. 
 
 Harvard Law professor Larry Lessig, who has known Scott since they were students at Penn, has signed on as co-counsel to MacLeish. Lessig, who was abused by the choir director as a student at the American Boychoir School in Princeton, N.J., said St. George’s needs to make therapy support “immediately available and not filtered through a lawyer.” 
 
 Scott said it took Hannum more than a month to respond to her request for therapy costs, and when he did, on Dec. 9, he said that she “may be eligible” for assistance, and asked for documentation. 
 
 Scott was upset. “It’s distressing on so many levels to submit to the school’s authority to make a determination on whether or not they will reimburse me . . . I’d rather pass than place the school in that position of power over me ever again.” 
 
 Peterson, who arrived at the school in 2004, said he hopes the investigation will conclude by the year’s end. He told the Globe that the two unnamed perpetrators were male faculty members who had left the school by 1988, and that their victims were male. According to his letter, the school is working with law enforcement “with respect to next steps” regarding them. 
 
 “The heart of the issue for me is that the school today is trying to do what’s right and trying to help alumni who need it,” he told the Globe. He declined to say how many victims have come forward since he sent out the letter. 
 
 After the school’s first letter in April, Peterson told MacLeish that tens of women came forward to complain about Gibbs, a fact that Peterson confirmed to the Globe, though he says not all were “firsthand reports.” 
 
 But one firsthand report came from Katie Wales, class of 1980, who went to see Gibbs after a horseback riding injury. He began to molest her and took photos of her naked in the school’s whirlpool, she says, which he then circulated among the boys at school. 
 
 “The taunting by the boys was horrible,” said Wales, 53, who lives in Granby, Conn. She said she went to see Zane in 1979 about Gibbs. “He told me I was crazy, making it up to get attention, and that I had to see the school shrink,” Wales said. 
 
 Zane says today that he believed Wales at the time, but thought that she came to him in confidence and “didn’t authorize me to go to Al Gibbs.” He added: “Gibbs declared his innocence until the end, so I was operating on hearsay.” 
 
 But Wales said that after the experience, her school life was miserable, and she began drinking and smoking marijuana. By the end of her senior year, she was into heavier drugs, and the week before graduation, she was expelled. “This whole thing kind of screwed me up,” said Wales. 
 
 When she got the school letter in April, Wales reported her experience to Hannum and has met with Peterson. She also posted a comment on Facebook. Among the alumnae who responded was Joan Reynolds. 
 
 Reynolds, class of 1979, was 13 years old when she entered St. George’s as a freshman. Now 54, she is a teacher who lives in Idaho and shared her story with the Globe — a story she said she had told no one but her husband and, recently, St. George’s. 
 
 Her father, grandfather, and great-grandfather were St. George’s alumni. Her father was director of development and alumni affairs at the school, her mother was director of day student affairs, and Reynolds lived on campus with them. The Reynolds family has for 35 years sponsored an annual scholarship at the school. 
 
 Reynolds played three sports, and sometimes her female coach would send her to Gibbs. “She’d say, ‘Al wants to see you for hamstrings,’ or this or that,” Reynolds said. There was no girls’ locker room; Gibbs’s training room was next to the boys’ locker room. All three women who spoke to the Globe recalled the sound of Gibbs locking the door behind them. 
 
 When she was first sent to Gibbs, Reynolds said, he started off by showing her how to “properly dry” her breasts. “He’d talk about what a good athlete I was, how I had to get healthy for these games. He’d tell me to strip down. There was this metal hot tub and he’d hang the towel far away. He would hug you, these suffocating hugs.” 
 
 Reynolds refused to take off her underwear; Gibbs never raped her, she says, but groped her on the training table. This went on periodically for two years, she said — until she got her first boyfriend, a strong athletic type. 
 
 After graduation, Reynolds moved out west, cutting all ties with the school. When, at her mother’s urging, she returned to campus for the first time in 2006 to be inducted into St. George’s sports hall of fame, she became physically ill. 
 
 . . . 
 
 Stew Milne for The Boston Globe The Zane dormitory at St. George’s School. 
 
 Zane, now 85 and living in New Bedford, said after he heard from students about Gibbs, he fired him in 1980. “He was doing things he shouldn’t have done as a trainer,” Zane said. 
 
 He did not, however, report the incidents to law enforcement, as required by law. Asked why not, he responded, “Was that true in Rhode Island in 1980?” 
 
 By 1967, MacLeish said, all 50 states had mandatory reporting laws about child abuse, which means Zane was required to call child protective services and the police. “If that had occurred, then Gibbs would have been stopped, treatment would have been provided to children, and a tremendous amount of human suffering would have been avoided,” MacLeish said. 
 
 In 2002, St. George’s named a new girls’ dorm after Zane. 
 
 Asked about the school’s aggressive response to Scott’s lawsuit, Zane said: “Instead of bringing a lawsuit against the school, she could have called me up and said, this happened to me. Don’t blame us for trying to defend ourselves against a $10 million lawsuit.” 
 
 Gibbs would have been 70 when he left St. George’s. According to an obituary in the Providence Journal, he had previously spent 30 years in the Navy. 
 
 Though they appreciate that the newest letter names Gibbs, the women who have brought forward complaints are upset that it doesn’t mention Zane. They want Zane Dormitory renamed and his portrait removed from the dining hall. 
 
 “At the very least, they shouldn’t be enshrining him,” said Scott. “It undermines the credibility of what they’re doing.” 
 
 Peterson has met twice with Scott, who says she is grateful that he apologized to her. 
 
 Asked what he apologized for, he said: “I’m sorry she was hurt. I’m sorry she came away from the school with her experience with Gibbs and thereafter feeling the school didn’t care for her, because the school does. I’m sorry she was wounded in all the ways she was.” 
 
 Bella English can be reached at Isobel.English@globe.com ||||| BOSTON — The prestigious St. George’s School in Rhode Island has been investigating what it says are “multiple credible reports” of sexual abuse of students in the 1970s and ’80s by three former employees, and said in a statement that its investigation was nearing an end. 
 
 The Rhode Island State Police is also looking into the accusations. Capt. Matthew Moynihan said the school had contacted the state police in early November. He said he could not say when the police inquiry might be completed. 
 
 St. George’s School, a coed boarding and day school for grades 9 to 12, began its investigation nearly a year ago, according to its statement, issued Tuesday. The statement, which was not signed, said the school had kept its alumni informed about “this important and difficult process” in letters sent in April, August and November. 
 
 The investigation was prompted by a lawyer for a former student, Anne Scott, who started at St. George’s School as a 10th grader in 1977, according to a detailed account Monday by The Boston Globe. She told the newspaper that she had been sexually molested and raped by Al Gibbs, the athletic trainer, who died in 1996 at age 86, but that he had warned her not to tell anyone, and for years she did not. ||||| BOSTON (AP) — Two former students of a prestigious Rhode Island boarding school spoke haltingly or cried Tuesday as they detailed being sexually abused as teenagers by an ex-athletic trainer. A third former student said he was raped with a broomstick by another pupil and described how his assault was so well-known on campus that there was a joking reference to it in the yearbook. 
 
 Katie Wales Lovkay, of Granby, Conn., left, who attended St. George's School from 1977-1980, is tearful while facing reporters as Harry Groome, of Arlington, Mass., right, who attended the school from... (Associated Press) 
 
 Katie Wales Lovkay, of Granby, Conn., right, who attended St. George's School from 1977-1980, hugs a former classmate, following a news conference, Tuesday, Jan. 5, 2016, in Boston. Former students of... (Associated Press) 
 
 Katie Wales Lovkay, of Granby, Conn., who attended St. George's School from 1977-1980, is tearful while facing reporters during a news conference Tuesday, Jan. 5, 2016, in Boston. Former students of the... (Associated Press) 
 
 Former students at St. George's School, from the left, Harry Groome, of Arlington, Mass., who attended from 1978-1982, Katie Wales Lovkay, of Granby, Conn., and Anne Scott, of Charlottesville, Va., who... (Associated Press) 
 
 Anne Scott, of Charlottesville, Va., center, and Katie Wales Lovkay, of Granby, Conn., right, who both attended St. George's School from 1977-1980, face reporters during a news conference as attorney... (Associated Press) 
 
 The three former students, who spoke at a Boston news conference, are among dozens who allege they were sexually abused at St. George's School in Middletown, where tuition costs $56,000 a year. Lawyers who represent them said they have heard from 40 people who have reported being molested or raped by former school staffers and students, most during the 1970s and 1980s but some as recently as 2004. 
 
 The former students called on the school to commission an independent investigation of the allegations and to set up a fund to help pay for therapy for the victims. 
 
 In a prepared statement, the school apologized "for the harm done to alumni by former employees and former students of the school." 
 
 "We also apologize that the way in which the school addressed these incidents has served to compound this harm," the statement said. 
 
 The school said it has authorized reimbursement for counseling for victims. 
 
 "We recognize the long-lasting impact of sexual abuse and are dedicated to working with survivors to aid them in healing from its painful aftermath," the school said. 
 
 Last month, the school said its investigation found that 26 students were sexually abused by six school employees in the 1970s and '80s. It acknowledged it didn't report abusers to authorities at the time and apologized for not doing more. 
 
 But the accusers say they are not satisfied with the school's investigation, particularly since it was conducted by the law partner of the school's attorney. 
 
 Anne Scott and Katie Wales Lovkay, who attended St. George's in the late 1970s, described being led through the boys locker room into a training room by the school's now-deceased athletic trainer. Scott said she was repeatedly raped by the trainer over a two-year period, beginning when she was 15. The trainer was 67. 
 
 Lovkay said the trainer repeatedly sexually abused her and took pictures of her naked, then showed them to male students. She said she was taunted mercilessly. 
 
 "I became known as the slut of the school," she said. Lovkay said she reported the abuse to the school's headmaster, but he did nothing. 
 
 "I was made to believe that I was nuts," she said. 
 
 Both women described years of mental health issues following the assaults, including eating disorders, post-traumatic stress syndrome and alcoholism. The Associated Press typically doesn't name accusers of sexual assault but is naming the three former students who appeared at the news conference because they have come forward publicly. 
 
 Rhode Island State Police began investigating in November and encourage any other victims to come forward. There is no statute of limitations on rape in Rhode Island. 
 
 State Police Col. Steven O'Donnell said not reporting a sex assault is a misdemeanor, though he would not discuss the specifics of the St. George's case. 
 
 Harry Groome, who said he was raped with a broomstick in front of several other students, said he wrote a letter describing the rape to the school's headmaster in 2002, but no action was taken. He said he met with the school's current headmaster in 2012. 
 
 "I want this school to thrive in the future, but it cannot thrive until we flush out the bad," Groome said.
– A sex abuse scandal is swirling around a Rhode Island prep school. At least 40 former students of St. George's School in Middletown have said they were abused—raped, in some cases—by seven former staffers and four students between 1974 and 2004, lawyers say. The scandal came to light in December, when St. George's announced it was investigating reports of sex abuse in the '70s and '80s. The Rhode Island State Police is also investigating the accusations forwarded to the department by the school and the lawyers of the alleged victims, the New York Times reports. No one has yet been criminally charged. The school's investigation was prompted by a former student who says she was molested by the school's athletic trainer in 1977 and who finally pushed St. George's to investigate her accusations last year, the Boston Globe reports. When the school announced its investigation, other alleged victims started coming forward. Four of the accused staff members are still living, and at least two of them may still be working around young people. Lawyers and three of the victims said at a recent news conference that the school downplayed the abuse for years, and St. George's admitted that though it did fire some of the accused, it did not report suspects to the police or relay the accusations to their next employers. Some victims are calling for Eric Peterson, the head of the school, to step down, accusing him of not taking the reports from alumni seriously. "Eric Peterson has been covering this up since 2004, my issue as well as others," says one 1982 grad. The alleged victim who finally successfully demanded that the school investigate first tried to sue decades ago, but says she was pressured into dropping the case by the school. Click for more on the accusations.