A Brooklyn jury has ordered the New York City Department of Education to pay $4.15 million to Antonio Vargas, now 70, after he testified that a teacher sexually assaulted him inside a school closet when he was just 13 years old. The abuse happened in 1969 at I.S. 111 Enrico Fermi Junior High School in Bushwick, and Vargas kept it secret for nearly 57 years before bringing his case to trial.
The verdict came after a nine-day trial in August, when a six-member Kings County jury found the city Department of Education 100% responsible for what happened to Vargas, according to Susan B. Edelman. Vargas testified that the abuse occurred during art class in 1969, when teacher Norman Brown assaulted him in a closet at the school, located at 35 Starr Street in Bushwick. Brown served as both an art teacher and the director of the school's after-school center, and is believed to be dead, per the same report.
Other Former Students Corroborated Years of Abuse
Vargas stopped attending Brown's art class and the after-school center after the assault, but he was far from the only student targeted. Lawyers for Vargas tracked down three former I.S. 111 students, now between 69 and 71 years old, who testified that Brown had repeatedly molested them and other classmates before Vargas was abused, the Substack report states.
One of those witnesses, identified as W.B., testified that Brown lured boys into a closet and molested him in a hallway, and said he told the school dean about both incidents. Another witness, A.J., testified that Brown openly carried a paddle around the school while hunting for boys, and that Brown tried to molest him while he was urinating; when A.J. reported the attempted molestation to the dean, it was A.J. who was disciplined, not Brown. A third witness, W.D., testified that Brown sexually abused him during private art lessons, and that the resulting trauma caused 156 absences from school. Court filings reviewed through Trellis show the case was filed as a tort action under the Child Victims Act in Kings County, recorded under Index No. 515706/2021 on November 15 of that year.
School Records Went Missing, Attorney Says
Despite the volume of testimony, the city's Department of Education could not produce a single document concerning Brown's tenure as a teacher or his record at I.S. 111, the report notes. School officials also reportedly failed to contact W.B.'s parents after he came forward, even as Brown allegedly held sexualized parties at his home where middle-school boys were given marijuana and alcohol.
Attorney Jeff Herman, who represents Vargas, said the school knew about the danger Brown posed and failed to protect him. Attorney Ameer Benno said the jury's verdict holds the city's Department of Education accountable for its failures. Vargas, who did not attend high school, went on to marry and raise three children before the case reached trial.
Part of a Wider Wave of Child Victims Act Cases
The Vargas verdict follows New York's Child Victims Act, passed in 2019, which lifted time limits that had previously barred survivors of childhood sexual abuse from filing civil claims. The New York State Office of Children and Family Services said the law, signed by then-Governor Cuomo, gave survivors across the state an opportunity to seek justice.
This is not the only large Child Victims Act award against the city's school system this year. In June, another Brooklyn jury ordered the Department of Education to pay $18 million to a 66-year-old man who accused a former music teacher of abusing him 55 years earlier. That case involved allegations that school officials were aware of prior reports involving the teacher, identified as John Clark, but failed to act, according to Herman Law, which described it as the first Child Victims Act lawsuit in New York to reach a verdict by trial. The city has since asked a judge to reduce that $18 million verdict as excessive, and is reportedly considering an appeal of the $4.15 million award in the Vargas case as well.
I.S. 111 No Longer Exists
I.S. 111 Enrico Fermi Junior High School closed in 2020 and was replaced by two smaller middle schools, with a charter school later moving into the former Starr Street site. Vargas says he was assaulted more than five decades ago at the site, and the case against the city that once ran the school has now reached a jury verdict.
