Thirteen folks have filed a class-action lawsuit accusing the town of Peabody and a former Peabody faculty fitness center trainer and coach of sexually abusing them – and presumably quite a few others — from 1969 to 1996.
The plaintiffs, recognized as John Doe 1001 to John Doe 1013 in a grievance filed in Middlesex Superior Court, accuse James Toltz of sexually abusing them whereas they had been college students at Higgins Middle School or John F. Kennedy Junior High School.
“Our day has finally come,” one of many males wrote in a letter his spouse learn at a press convention on Wednesday. “It is my hope that through sharing I will encourage others to find the strength to come forward. Be heard; you are not alone. Together we will take back the power he stole from us. We will set ourselves free.”
In his letter, the man stated that he relived the abuse and had nightmares and daydreams about it “countless times since, along with the very real, almost debilitating, flood of emotions, from utter helplessness to acute terror.”
“I tried to bury it,” he stated, “but it changed the course of my life, and it just had a “subliminal influence on me from that day forward.”
He implored every other alleged victims to return ahead, in addition to anybody else who knew in regards to the abuse however selected to show a “blind eye” to it.
Toltz, now 80 and dwelling in Winter Garden, Fla., didn’t return cellphone calls in search of remark.
Because the plaintiffs imagine there might be many extra alleged victims of Toltz, their lawyer, Carmen Durso, filed the grievance as a category motion lawsuit in opposition to him for sexual abuse and in opposition to the town of Peabody “for negligence in failing to properly train, supervise and discipline Toltz” for 34 years.
The grievance alleges that Toltz had a status as an abuser, and but nobody investigated the scholars’ allegations that he was fondling their genitals and observing them whereas they had been within the faculty’s showers.
Toltz additionally gave a number of college students cocaine at Higgins, JFK and at his home, in keeping with the grievance.
While he was a trainer and/or a coach at each colleges, he abused compelled many college students to bathe bare whereas he watched them, the grievance alleges.
He additionally allegedly abused them by stroking their genitals and making use of lotions or ointments to them.
John Doe 1001 alleges that Toltz abused him from the ages of 12 to 16, inflicting him “extreme physical and emotional stress.”
John Doe 1001 to 1006 are beneath the age of 53; the others are throughout that age “but did not begin to understand they were harmed … until December 2019,” in keeping with the grievance.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”