The Herricks School Board approved a $2.25 million payout to a former student in a Child Victims Act sex abuse settlement Thursday night.
The former student, identified in court documents only as J.G., alleged that former school psychologist Vincent Festa sexually abused him multiple times when he was a Herricks student in the 1980s and 1990s.
The former student filed a post-trial motion after his original lawsuit ended with a 2024 jury deciding the district was not negligent. He asked for that verdict to be set aside, and the judgment was appealed.
In a statement on its Thursday night board meeting agenda, Herricks said it continues to deny liability and decided to enter into this settlement to avoid further litigation.
“The school district asserted various defenses to the claims alleged by the plaintiff against the school district, and continues to deny any liability in connection with the claims asserted,” the district’s statement said. “The parties have agreed to settle their claims to avoid the burden, time, expense and inherent uncertainty of further litigation.”
The school board voted unanimously to increase its 2025-2026 budget by $2.25 million to pay for the settlement, designating funds from the current unassigned fund balance to the payout.
Superintendent Tony Sinanis declined to provide any further comment.
J.G.’s case is one of 27 sex abuse lawsuits against the district that were filed under the Child Victims Act, which provided former child sex abuse victims of any age with a two-year period between 2019 and 2021 to come forward and seek justice. The normal age cap to sue over child sex abuse is 23. This was the only case that went to trial.
During the trial, the district conceded that Festa, who died in 2011, had sexually abused students during his two-decade tenure in the district, but denied that school officials condoned his actions or ignored reports from staff, students and parents.
J.G. alleged that Festa developed a relationship with him while he was in middle school and sexually abused him in his office four times while he was in ninth and tenth grade.
His attorney, Jeff Herman of Herman Law, argued that the district should have investigated Festa due to multiple instances of alleged sexual abuse, and the fact that he was allegedly referred to as “Festa the Molester,” dating back at least a decade before J.G. attended Herricks High School..
“Herricks School District…failed to follow the most basic safety rule, and that is they didn’t forward reports and warnings that Festa was molesting kids,” Herman said during the trial.
The district has paid over $50 million to former students through sex abuse lawsuits.
Sexual assault allegations against Festa were many and spanned from 1973 to 1991. He was required to register as a sex offender in 1995 after he was arrested by Suffolk police two years earlier and pleaded guilty to sodomizing six boys in Ronkonkoma, where he lived.
Herricks has paid the second most out of all Long Island school districts in relation to child sex abuse lawsuits.
