PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) – An Episcopal diocese in Florida says it is investigating a former headmaster at the elite Rhode Island boarding school St. George’s, which is at the center of an abuse scandal.
The Rev. George E. Andrews is accused of failing to report sexual abuse by a teacher to authorities when he led the school in the 1980s. He now runs a consulting firm that places chaplains at Episcopal and other schools. His son-in-law is the Fox News personality Tucker Carlson, and his daughter sits on the St. George’s board.
The Diocese of Southeast Florida opened an investigation into Andrews earlier this year after news broke that dozens of students had been abused at the $58,000-per-year school in Middletown. The church investigation was put on hold while police and independent investigator Martin Murphy looked into St. George’s, according to Bishop Peter Eaton of the Diocese of Southeast Florida.
Police brought no charges, but last week the independent investigator released a 390-page report that detailed decades of abuse by multiple teachers, mostly in the 1970s and 1980s.
According to the report, Andrews, headmaster from 1984 to 1988, fired a choirmaster for inappropriate sexual contact with a student. The investigator found that Andrews, on the advice of a school lawyer, never reported the abuse to authorities. It also concluded that under Rhode Island’s reporting laws, his inaction didn’t appear to break the law.