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March 30 (UPI) -- A private school in northern New Jersey released a report finding that a teacher sexually abused more than 20 boys at the school in the early 70s. The Pingry School in Summerset County released a report Tuesday that said Thad "Ted" Alton sexually assaulted the pre-teen boys anywhere from 25 to 100 times from 1972-78. He is accused of assaulting students from his class and his Boy Scout troop.
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The report details accusations and accounts by 27 boys who were students at the school, located 49 miles west of Manhattan.
Alton, now 70, was forced to register as sex offender in New York in 1995 after serving six years in prison for molestation and sodomy. He now lives in Lower Manhattan where he writes curriculum for prisoners. His attorney, Marcy McMann, declined to comment on the report.
The report also alleges sexual abuse by two other former teachers at the school: Bruce Bohrer, a wood shop teacher at The Pingry School between 1974 and 1991, who told investigators he "would never do anything like that"; and Antoine du Bourg, who taught at Pingry for 46 years, left the school in 2002 and died in 2011.
The report said assaults by Alton took place individually and in groups. He invited boys to his office where he would show them pornographic material and play "truth or dare."
Incidents also occurred in the school gym, the girls locker room, the home of his in-laws and in his own home when his wife and children were present, the report said.
"We are devastated by these findings and the reality that these abuses were, for decades, weighing on the survivors without our awareness or our action," Nathaniel Conard, headmaster, and Jeffrey Edwards, chairman of the board of trustees, wrote in an open letter to the Pingry community on the school's website, PingryResponse.org. "And, faculty members' accounts of observing unusual behavior on the part of their colleagues are particularly troubling when viewed against the standards of institutional accountability and reporting that are in place at Pingry today. For all of these reasons, we want to extend a profound apology to our community."
One year ago to the day the report was released, Pingry first informed its alumni that officials had learned of accusations of abuse.
Two years ago, several victims formed The Pingry Survivors support and advocacy group, which conducted its own investigation.
Alton left Pingry after the 1977-78 school year and taught for one year nearby at The Peck School in Morristown.
In 1979, he pleaded guilty to six charges after an episode of strip poker and fondling with his Scouts. He received a suspended sentence and five years' probation, with the court determining he acted on a "transient situational disturbance."
He got a job in 1981 at a university in upstate New York, working with children in a kayaking club he started. In 1989, he was charged and convicted of molestation of boys in the club.
