Years Of Abuse At Brooklyn School Alleged

Mr. Rusch's accusers include, right to left, former Woodward students Sara Smahl, her sister Nancy,
Lisa Young, Jane Bedell and Wendy Hooker.

In the late 1960s, Bob Rusch cut a striking figure at Woodward School, a small, progressive private school housed inside a brownstone mansion in Clinton Hill, Brooklyn.

Where most of the other teachers were older and stuck in 1950s fashion, former students say, Mr. Rusch was young, tall and cool, striding through halls with his thick reddish beard and colorful African dashikis over jeans and sandals.

His classes achieved a cultlike status. He took his seventh- and eighth-grade students to events such as a civil-rights trial, an antiwar protest in Washington, D.C., and a show at the Apollo Theater. He read them "The Autobiography of Malcolm X" after lunch and hosted jazz jam sessions in class and at his house, which was just around the corner. Every summer, he and his wife led a cross-country road trip that students begged their parents to join.

"He was just like this god to us," said former student Julie Levine.

But Mr. Rusch also harbored a dark distinction, according to nearly a dozen former students. They say he sexually abused a succession of girls, some as young as 12 years old. The allegations range from touching and kissing on school grounds to sexual intercourse on summer class trips.  (more...)

Years Of Abuse At Brooklyn School Alleged