With criminal charges settled, civil suits in Plainville child pornography case advance
As victims’ lawsuits in a high-profile Plainville child pornography case advance, the town is looking to be held exempt from liability for crimes that happened at the girls shower room at Plainville High School.
Plainville in April filed court motions to be freed from more than a half-dozen lawsuits seeking damages from Kyle Fasold’s secret videotaping of dozens of girls and young women as they showered or used the bathrooms at the school.
The families of nine girls are suing Fasold and the town, and most have also named the Blue Dolphins swim team as a defendant. They claim the town failed to adequately supervise Fasold when he served as a parent volunteer for the team, which was allowed to use the high school’s pool.
Plainville and the Blue Dolphins parents association knew or should have known that Fasold “had a propensity to engage in inappropriate and disturbing conduct” and that they allowed him to continue as a parent-volunteer, even though they should have known this was dangerous to the safety of others, according to a lawsuit by Paul Iannaccone, an attorney with Riscassi & Davis representing a girl identified as Jane Doe #1.
But the town has asked a judge to dismiss it from all of the negligence cases, arguing that it is protected by governmental immunity.
Thomas Gerarde, the town’s attorney, is also arguing that the plaintiffs cannot successfully invoke the “identifiable victim-imminent harm exception” to governmental immunity. That exception applies when a public employee’s action or failure to act would probably risk imminent harm to an identifiable person; Gerarde contends the harm was not obvious to any town employee, that it was not imminent and that no individual victim qualified as an identifiable victim.
Unless Gerarde’s motion prevails, the lawsuits are scheduled for jury selection starting in January. The girls and their families are suing for financial damages for therapy costs among other things.
Depositions in the case indicate that some parks and recreation employees say they’d heard no complaints about Fasold during several years that he was a parent volunteer on the Blue Dolphins, a youth swim team. Both of his children swam on the team.
Ben Dalena, assistant director of Plainville’s recreation department, said in a sworn statement that he’d never heard concerns about Fasold before his arrest. Dalena was a town lifeguard who worked during Blue Dolphins practices from 2017 to 2019, part of the time when Fasold was doing his covert taping.
“The first time I became aware of any improper conduct by Kyle Fasold was when news of his arrest became public in March 2020,” Dalena said. “I never witnessed Kyle Fasold engage in any inappropriate or suspicious activities towards any individual.”
But at least one other lifeguard told the court about becoming suspicious at poolside when a girl was standing just beyond Fasold. Fasold was holding his phone in front of him, but abruptly clasped his phone to his chest when the guard walked by, according to the deposition.
Fasold, 52, was hit with several federal charges when he was arrested. He pleaded guilty to one count of producing child pornography, and was sentenced in January to 25 years in prison.
Federal authorities arrested Fasold, vice president of the team’s parents association, on child pornography charges in mid-2020. Prosecutors presented evidence at his trial that he had used hidden cameras to record young swimmers and lifeguards in the school’s changing room and bathroom, as well as the bathroom at his home where he’d hosted at least one Blue Dolphins gathering.
