[excerpt]

“He was not checked,’’ Schwartzman said.

The check would have revealed Benjamin’s five-year prison term in the 1990s after pleading guilty to charges of rape and sex abuse and his status as a Level 2 registered sex offender. His case included allegations of predatory behavior toward adolescent boys, and that he secretly videotaped himself having sex with three teenage boys...

Last week, the school also ended the employment of Benjamin Zander, 72, a marquee faculty member for more than 45 years and longtime conductor of the Youth Philharmonic Orchestra, one of numerous faculty members who used the videographer’s services, though the only one to admit knowing about his past crimes.
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Boston Globe Article of Sex Offender in a School.

There ARE NO EXCUSES for such stupidity. Whoever hired him without checking background should be FIRED.

Yes, that, but people who allowed him to stay and covered-up the sex-offense record???? A devastating civil suit should put him/them into the street in a cardboard-box house. They knew better than the already weak Mass Law.

What is it about schools turning blind eyes and cutting corners on kids' safety? This time, the school (NEC) official admits they didn't follow their own screening policy when hiring this pedo. Don't they remember what a scandal like this did to the San Francisco Boys' Choir?

Sure, this convicted molester says he has never been alone with a NEC student (at least on the job), but once he got out of the slammer he couldn't resist gravitating into another job where he's constantly videotaping kids. Clues... patterns... anyone?

John

Well put John. Why is it so clear to us and not others. I challenged the reporter to look a bit deeper and ask some very fundamental questions.

Sadness that the kids are not protected hits me hard here. I don't even want to think about the possible victims. So maybe that's what's hitting the general public and the press? I don't know...but its no excuse to not act proactively and aggressively.