PORTSMOUTH ― Attorney Jeffrey D. Sowa in a Jan. 21 letter to the Town Council ― sent on behalf of Ryan Moniz ― said if the town failed to provide his client with “just and due compensation” within 40 days from the date of the demand, “this firm will commence a civil action … seeking … compensatory damages, punitive damages, statutory interest, and attorneys’ fees.”
Moniz was not provided any compensation within the 40 days, School Committee attorney Mary Ann Carroll said Sunday. A lawsuit had not been filed yet, she added.
Moniz was removed as football coach at Portsmouth High School after the partial release of an investigative report examining the circumstances surrounding the death of a student.
The letter does not specifically state the “just and due compensation” sought, and Sowa did not respond to a January email from a reporter seeking that information.
“The matter remains pending,” Sowa said in an email to The Daily News on March 3. When pressed for details on March 6, Sowa said in an email: “We don’t have any further comment on the matter at this point.”
On March 5, Town Solicitor Kevin Gavin said the 40-day demand letter to the Town Council is “just a formality … that’s why the town is named,” and pointed to a state law which stipulates “every person who has any money due … from any town … or any claim or demand against any town or city … shall present to the town council … a particular account of that person’s claim, debt, damages, or demand … in case just and due satisfaction is not made … within forty (40) days … the person may commence his or her action … .”
According to Sowa’s Jan. 21 letter, Moniz has “multiple and significant claims” against the Portsmouth School Committee and former Superintendent Ana Riley.
Gavin said the town referred the letter to the Rhode Island Interlocal Risk Management Trust, which insures the town. Carroll said the School Department also forwarded the 40-day demand letter to the trust. Until and if a suit is filed, the trust won’t act, Carroll said.
Sowa alleges in the letter — provided to The Daily News — that “Moniz’s termination [as football coach in June 2018], the [School] Committee’s public dissemination of the Executive Summary [of attorney Matthew Oliverio’s report], and/or the ultimate public release of [Oliverio’s report] have caused substantial damages to Moniz.”
″[Moniz] and his family members have been subjected to constant public scorn and ridicule, and he has incurred public animus as a direct consequence of the actions of the [Portsmouth School] Committee and [former Superintendent Ana] Riley,” Sowa wrote in the letter. “He will never be able to recover from the damage to his reputation. Despite being named the 2016/2017 Rhode Island Coach of the Year for football, Moniz has been unable to continue in the role he loves either in his hometown of Portsmouth or elsewhere.”
Oliverio was commissioned by the School Committee to investigate the circumstances surrounding the death of 15-year-old Portsmouth High School sophomore Nathan Bruno, who died by suicide at his home on February 7, 2018.
Beginning in December 2017, Nathan had sent a series of harassing texts and phone calls to Moniz. There were two other students involved, but they were not identified. Moniz, according to information in Oliverio’s report, tried to learn the identities of the other two students and held team meetings in an attempt to do so. On Feb. 6, 2018, three boys visited Nathan’s home and urged him to disclose the names of other two students involved, Oliverio’s report states. Nathan died the next day.
Oliverio, in his report, made a suite of recommendations to the School Committee in June 2018, including his recommendation to not re-appoint Moniz as the football coach for the 2018-19 school year.
“The Report, along with its Executive Summary, is replete with falsehoods, defamatory information, findings, and/or suggestions, and was the product of an incomplete, and cherry-picked investigation which negligently, recklessly and/or intentionally omitted material facts, excluded interviews or other salient evidence from critical percipient witnesses,” Sowa wrote in his letter. Oliverio’s conclusions were “either incredibly careless, or the product of a predetermined result, in order for the Committee and/or Riley to effectively scapegoat Moniz for the failings of others.”
Nathan’s father Rick Bruno and Misty Kolbeck, a Florida resident and Nathan’s mother, took legal action against the town in November, when a complaint was filed in Newport County Superior Court. The town of Jamestown, some Portsmouth School Department employees and a Jamestown detective were the other defendants named in that suit.
“The administrative complaint process that I followed, to try to bring about changes that would prevent something like this from recurring, was unproductive and disappointing,” Rick Bruno said in an email to The Daily News in November. “Therefore, we have filed this lawsuit to try to bring about awareness and accountability that we hope will act as a catalyst for changes necessary to make sure this kind of tragedy will never happen again. No child and no family should have to endure what Nate and our family have and are going through.”
That suit is pending, according to online court records.
[email protected]. Follow Laura on Twitter @LauraDamonNDN
