A lawsuit filed in state Supreme Court last month leveled new abuse allegations against Edwin Gaynor, as yet another accuser has come forward against the former Immaculate Heart of Mary teacher and coach in an ongoing legal saga that began last November.
This newest lawsuit however, is the first that does not name Gaynor as a co-defendant, but instead focuses on the roles played by IHM, the Archdiocese of New York and the Sisters of Charity, an order of nuns that were in charge of the Scarsdale elementary school during the time of the alleged abuse.
On July 14, Elmsford resident Robert Reno became the 23rd plaintiff to accuse Gaynor of sexual abuse in a Child Victims Act lawsuit, filing court documents that allege that the now 85-year-old Ossining resident molested him between 1964 and 1965, when the plaintiff was a student at IHM. Court documents show that at least eight of the 23 men who have come forward with similar claims against Gaynor say that the abuse occurred at IHM in the early-to-mid 1960s, and at least one—Quentin Durning—can be identified as a classmate of Reno’s, according to a Jan. 26, 1966, issue of the Scarsdale Inquirer.
But unlike his 22 fellow accusers who enlisted the legal services of Lowey Dannenberg, PC, and are seeking damages from Gaynor, the Archdiocese and IHM, Reno is being represented by the Manhattan-based Marsh Law Firm, PLLC and opted to include the Sisters of Charity among the co-defendants for failing to provide a safe learning environment for their students.
The Sisters of Charity of Saint Vincent de Paul is a Bronx-based congregation that was founded in 1809 and, according to the organization’s website, has opened or staffed 185 schools and 23 childcare institutions since the mid-19th Century.
The organization was tasked with educational and administrative duties at the IHM school in the 1960s, according to the June 25 testimony of Dan O’Hare, who replaced Gaynor as the athletic director at IHM after the latter was dismissed due to alleged sexual misconduct with a student. Several of the accusers from the 1960s allege that their complaints about Gaynor’s behavior were ignored by those in charge, while O’Hare’s deposition also shed some light into the hierarchical structure at IHM during the time period.
“One [sister] was a principal, the others were teachers of various grades,” O’Hare testified. “The day-to-day operations were the sisters, and then the lay person and then the parish priest was . . . an underling of the pastor.”
The Sisters of Charity were replaced by another order, the Dominican Sisters of Sparkill in 1967 or 1968, which coincides with Gaynor’s initial dismissal from the parish. Gaynor would move to a new position as a coach at Holy Rosary in Hawthorne in the late 1960s before returning to IHM as a CYO basketball coach at some point in the 1980s. He has been accused of sexual abuse at both stops following his initial dismissal from IHM.
According to O’Hare’s testimony, the Dominican Sisters would remain in charge of education at IHM until the mid-1970s when administrative duties were handed over primarily to lay people.
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