A federal judge last week dismissed, without prejudice, a slew of claims against the Virgin Islands government and former V.I. Education Department staff members who were accused of failing to stop sexual abuse by former Charlotte Amalie High School hall monitor and track coach Alfredo Bruce Smith.
The wide-ranging civil suit was brought in late 2024 by a former CAHS student, identified as John Doe in court filings, who claimed that school officials and others failed to stop Smith despite knowing about his crimes. Smith was arrested in 2021 and pleaded guilty in 2023 to raping, assaulting and exploiting a dozen students over a 15-year period. He was sentenced to 35 years in prison.
The civil suit named Smith, the V.I. Education and Human Services departments, the V.I. Education Board and the Virgin Islands government as defendants. Former CAHS principal Alcede Edwards and teacher Camelia Febres were also named in the initial complaint, and CAHS principal April Petrus was added to an amended complaint filed last year. Edwards and Petrus retired last January amid an internal investigation into their handling of complaints about Smith. Febres remains employed at CAHS, according to the school’s website and the government’s transparency website.
According to the complaint, the former student had already been sexually assaulted by Smith three times when, in 2019, he learned that he would have to share a room with his abuser on a school trip to Puerto Rico. He complained to school officials, who called a meeting attended by Smith, “chaperones on the trip, a CAHS teacher, defendant FEBRES, and other agents of Defendants.”
“SMITH was visibly angry at this meeting, in view of the other attendees and Defendants, and the other attendees did nothing to stop SMITH’s intimidation of the Plaintiff for raising this issue,” according to the complaint, which added that the attendees “knew Plaintiff was in danger but no actions were taken.”
The plaintiff said he was abused by Smith a fourth time on the trip, after which he ran from the room and called his mother, who reported the incident to Edwards, Febres and other unnamed school personnel “who falsely promised they would speak with SMITH and address the situation.” When nothing happened, the plaintiff’s mother contacted Homeland Security Investigations, “which was the only reason Smith was arrested in September 2021 … and not because of anything Defendants did to stop SMITH,” according to the complaint.
The civil suit accused the defendants of: deliberate indifference to Smith’s multiple assaults; creation of a hostile environment; failure to train; retaliation; violating the student’s constitutional right to bodily integrity; violating the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause; conspiracy; negligence; civil assault and battery; and intentional and reckless infliction of emotional distress.
On Thursday, U.S. District Court Chief Judge Robert Molloy granted motions to dismiss a number of those claims but said he will allow the plaintiff to replead most of them.
The Equal Protection claims against Edwards were dismissed because the plaintiff failed to “allege sufficient facts regarding whether Defendant Edwards was in a supervisory position at the time of the alleged assaults.” A conspiracy count was dismissed for all defendants because the complaint did not “provide some factual basis to support the existence of elements of a conspiracy: agreement and concerted action.” Molloy also dismissed all claims against the Education Board, which had argued that it “did not appoint, employ, supervise or certify Smith.” The board also argued that it’s not subject to liability under Title IX because it doesn’t receive federal funds and that the entity is not a mandatory reporter under Virgin Islands law.
Concerns about whether school officials knew about Smith persisted in the years following his arrest. The government produced a long-awaited audit of the Education Department’s abuse reporting protocols in 2024 that highlighted significant systemic failures like cultural barriers to reporting, fears of retaliation and a general lack of training. VIDE updated its reporting policies and guidelines later that year.
In September, VIDE confirmed that assistant principal Clifton Boyd was suspended after a former student claimed that Boyd had abused him while he was a student at Joseph Gomez Elementary School. The Source confirmed that Boyd had previously been reported to school officials. He was arrested in November.
The V.I. Police Department did not respond to emails this week requesting information about investigations into government employees who failed to report Boyd. Teachers and other school personnel are required by the V.I. Code to report suspected abuse. Failure to report is a felony offense punishable by up to five years in prison and a $10,000 fine.
On Tuesday, Gov. Albert Bryan Jr. told the Source that an investigation is ongoing and being handled by the V.I. Justice Department.
