A New York woman says she was sexually abused by her gym teacher at the tony Trinity School on the Upper West Side when she was a little girl in the ea🎃rly 1980s, new court papers allege.
The woman — whose name is being withheld — filed suit in Manhattan Supreme Court against the K-12 private school and gym teacher Robert Tyson claiming he sexually abused her on “numerous occasions” when she was around 5 or 6 years old.
Around 1982 and 1983 during gym class, Tyson had the victim “reach into his pocket to retrieve a sticker,” the court papers allege.
He then “grew emboldened and began to create opportunities for him to inappropriately and illegally engage in sexual contact and touching with plaintiff, a minor child,” the suit claims.
Then, on multiple occasions he took her “into his office, closed the door and sexually abused plaintiff,” the filing alleges. Tyson did this “in order to gratify his own depraved sexual desires,” the court documents allege.
The ab🐟use allegedly made her regress linguistically.
Her “language skills deteriorated significantly,” the suit claims. “She became effectively mute, or was able to communicate only in Spanish, rather than English.”
She also claims on several occasions she was taken to a headmaster’s office where the headmaster “treated plaintiff inappropriately,” the court papers claim without elaborating further.
The woman claims the school — which now charges a $58,505-a-year tuition — was negligent when it hired Tyson in 1979. The court papers allege that the school kept him on staff despite having “received numerous complaints of sexual misconduct against” him.
“This allowed Robert Tyson to be in close proximity to many more unsuspecting and
innocent children, including some (like plaintiff) who fell victim to his predations,” the suit charges.
The woman has suffered “life-long physical, psychological and emotional harm,” including post-traumatic stress disorder and bipolar disorder, the court documents claim.
She also claims that she has struggled to have a healthy sex life and s꧋elf-esteem, as well as healthy relationships.
Last year, the s🍒chool into allegations of sexual 🎃abuse by staff.
A report of the ꦯinvestigation against eight staff, with the alleged incidents primarily taking place in the 1970s and 1980s. The report only identified two of the eight alleged abusers and did not name Tyson.
The woman is suing for unspecified damages.
The woman was able to bring her claims under New York’s Child Victims’ Act look-back window, which allows survivors of childhood abuse to bring la✅wsuits rega♈rdless of how old their claims are. The window is slated to close on Saturday.
Trinity spokesman Kevin Ramsey told The Post in a statement, “Trinity’s highest priority is the safety of our students and we have strict policies and procedures in place governing faculty and staff interactions with students.
“This is the first we are hearing of these deeply disturbing allegations – nor did they surface in the course of a wide-ranging investigation that was commissioned by the school two years ago.
“While the allegations date back nearly 40 years and this individual has not worked at Trinity since 1995, we are committed to investigating them.”
Tyson could not be reached for comment.