Staff Writer – Bruno Matarazzo Jr.
KENT — An attorney is planning to appeal a recent Superior Court decision that won’t allow the continued use of pseudonyms for former students he is representing in a lawsuit against Kent School.
Former students and employees sued the school earlier this year over allegations that former Kent School employee Daniel Clery obtained their photos and other information without authorization and suspect he passed the material on to others.
The lawsuit is one of several against the private boarding and day school since Clery’s arrest last year by state police on two charges of first-degree computer crimes. He pleaded not guilty and is free on a $25,000 bond.
Clery worked as a computer administrator at the school until he was fired in February 2023, according to the lawsuit.
In their request to continue using the pseudonyms Jane Doe 1-5, attorney Joel Faxon said his clients fear that revealing their true identity would impair their ability to obtain future employment and increase the risk of sexual exploitation, identity theft, fraud and online bullying.
Superior Court Judge Daniel Klau said while the plaintiffs had valid privacy interests, “they have not met their heavy burden of demonstrating that those interests outweigh the public’s interest in open judicial proceedings,” according to his decision.
Faxon is planning to appeal Klau’s June 6 decision to the state Appellate Court.
“We respectfully disagree with the Judge’s ruling and believe these young women — who were children when they were sexually exploited by a Kent School employee — are entitled to remain anonymous as plaintiffs and will pursue an appeal of the ruling denying them that right,” Faxon said in an email.
The decision was made after a hearing last month. The hearing was posted for the public and no one objected. The Kent School also did not object.
Court rules allow for limited circumstances of pseudonyms in lawsuits.
All of the affidavits submitted by the former students, who no longer are minors, are identical. Each former student said the school told each one to ask Clery when they had problems with any personal electronic devices and went to him to fix their computer.
Each one asserted in the affidavit that Clery “stole pictures and/or videos” that were on their computer and that the pictures or videos “may have included intimate pictures I took of myself for private reasons” and that the images “may have been sold or traded or used voyeuristically,” according to the judge’s decision.
“The fears the Jane Doe plaintiffs express — for their safety, for their ability to obtain future employment, of possible deep fakes, identity theft, fraud, etc. — might be sufficient to warrant the use of a pseudonym, but only if their affidavits asserts facts showing the fears are objectively reasonable,” Klau wrote. “The affidavits, however, do not assert such facts.”
Klau added the fears are based on “an unsupported assertion or belief that Clery not only viewed their intimate photos and videos, but sold or traded them with sexual predators online, and that they may be publicly accessible.”
In a footnote, Klau said nothing in his decision is intended to prevent evidence of intimate photographs or videos to be sealed as trial exhibits.
A trial isn’t scheduled until spring 2027.