Santa Rosa police investigating reports of alleged child sex abuse at Sonoma Academy

The Santa Rosa Police Department confirmed Tuesday it is investigating several reports of suspected child sex abuse “associated with staff at Sonoma Academy,” a prestigious private school at the center of a widening teacher misconduct and abuse scandal that has affected more than three dozen students over nearly two decades.

It is the first confirmation that local law enforcement are investigating reports of suspected child abuse linked to the Santa Rosa campus. It comes a day after the school released an unredacted report from a law firm hired by the school after a Press Democrat investigation in June revealed sweeping allegations of sexual grooming and other improper behavior by a former longtime teacher.

Santa Rosa Police spokesman Sgt. Chris Mahurin said that between mid-September and early October, police received several reports from a “third party” of suspected child abuse tied to the school. He could not say whether the reports being investigated by police involved current or former staff.

Mahurin said the identity of the person who reported the abuse is protected. He declined to provide any details on the police investigation, because the cases are “open and ongoing,” he said.

“Reporting parties of a suspected child abuse report are protected and we cannot reveal who reported to law enforcement these incidents,” he said. “Our officers have reached out to the victims in every one of these suspected child abuse reports.”

It’s unclear if the reports being investigated by police are the same abuses that were detailed in a 49-page report summarizing the outside investigation launched by the school in June.

Sonoma County District Attorney Jill Ravitch said Tuesday she was reviewing the matter, including the school’s report. She said she’s in contact with Santa Rosa police officials on their investigation.

“I am concerned by what I have read,” Ravitch said. “But I want to review the independent report and I want to give the police department the chance to do the same.”

The school’s investigative report, conducted by New York law firm Debevoise & Plimpton, outlined how former humanities teacher Marco Morrone acted inappropriately with at least 34 female students over his 18-year tenure, which ended in 2020 when he was dismissed for his behavior.

The misconduct by Morrone involved inappropriate touching and one-on-one meetings and intimate correspondence with students, sharing and assigning sexually graphic literature with students, and forging close emotional bonds with multiple female students that investigators said amounted to grooming “for his own purposes,” including sexual contact. One of the girls had sexual relations with him after she graduated, investigators found.

Morrone, 51, has not responded to Press Democrat calls Monday and Tuesday for comment.

The report also revealed that two other school employees sexually abused three other students, and assigned blame to top administrators for routinely dismissing the concerns of students who tried to report the behavior.

Shannon Rake, 42, a former star player at Sonoma State University, was an assistant soccer coach accused of sexually abusing a Sonoma Academy female student between 2002 and 2003.

Adrian Belic, 51, an Academy Award-nominated filmmaker, was a teacher who sexually abused two Sonoma Academy students, investigators said. The abuse took place after Belic taught a documentary course at the school in 2004.

Calls and emails seeking comment from Rake and Belic have gone unreturned.

Sonoma Academy’s board, in an email to the school’s community, said it had relayed unspecified findings from the report to local law enforcement. But Mahurin said his department had not yet received the report.

“As of today, noon, no one in my agency that I’m aware of has seen that report yet,” Mahurin said. “But I don’t know if they put it in snail mail and it’s on its way.”

Sonoma County Sheriff’s Sgt. Juan Valencia said that agency also has not received the school report.

Tucker Foehl, the head of school at Sonoma Academy, Tory Nosler, the board president, did not respond to Press Democrat calls and emails seeking comment on Tuesday.

Mahurin said police could not comment on the Debevoise & Plimpton report, even once it’s reviewed. He said police investigators would have to conduct their own investigation of the allegations raised in the report. “We would have to get that through victim statements in a criminal investigation,” he said.

The law firm interviewed 133 people, including alumni, current and former faculty, staff and trustees, current and former Sonoma Academy parents, and others to help produce its report. Investigators also reviewed 61,000 documents, including email, personnel files and yearbooks.

Ravitch said she could not at this time comment on some of the details of the Debevoise report until she’s had a chance to review it more thoroughly. That includes a finding that top Sonoma Academy administrators failed to report to law enforcement instances of sexual abuse even though they were mandated to do so under state law.

Speaking generally about laws requiring certain professionals to report to authorities instances of child sex abuse, Ravitch said, “If you see something, say something … we have mandated reporting laws for a reason, and the reason is to protect the vulnerable.”

Ravitch encouraged anyone who believes they may have been a victim or survivor of any crime to reach out to the Family Justice Center, the county’s one-stop hub for such cases, and local law enforcement it they’re willing.

Failure of a mandated reporter to officially report incidents of child abuse can be charged as a misdemeanor, Mahurin said. However, the statute of limitations for bringing such a charge is five years after the offense is committed, he said.

“The government has five years to take action against the individual who failed to report as a mandated reporter,” he said.

The allegations of sexual abuse by Rake and Belic outlined in the Debevoise report occurred beyond that time period.

More recent reports Sonoma Academy graduates told The Press Democrat they have made to school officials about Morrone’s behavior would fall within that window.

You can reach Staff Writer Martin Espinoza at 707-521-5213 or martin.espinoza@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @pressreno.