crime

Former Kent School employee to face hearing for alleged sexual misconduct

KENT — A former information technology employee at the Kent School will face arraignment at Waterbury Superior Court on Dec. 11 for felony charges relating to accessing photographs of underage students, among others, during his employment at the institution.

The suspect is Daniel Clery, 47, who was employed by the Kent School for more than 20 years before his termination last year.

A Nov. 2 report by Clara Molot in the digital newsletter Air Mail detailed the history of the case, which goes back to February 2023 when an employee of the school allegedly spotted a photo of her on the accused’s phone.

Air Mail reported nine current students, 59 recent graduates, seven employees and four former employees (all mostly female) are alleged to be victims of Clery’s, who is said to have abused the school’s software management system to upload photos from their computers. Clery is also alleged to have accessed students’ private accounts in order to obtain personal files from emails. The article in Air Mail drew these findings from a report by a private consulting firm called Vancord that was hired by Kent School to investigate the case.

The article also claimed that Clery had found a job within Yale University’s IT department shortly after leaving the Kent School.

Attempts to reach both Kent School and Yale have yet to yield a response.

Clery appeared at Waterbury Superior Court on the morning of Nov. 22, where he was represented by attorney Mark Ouellette of Middlebury. His time at the stand was brief; the case was promptly transferred to Part A court, where the most serious (greater than Class D felony) cases are handled, according to a lawyer at Field Law Office in Enfield, Connecticut. A tentative time of 10 a.m. was scheduled for the court appearance on Dec. 11.

Ouellette declined to comment on the case before the trial date.

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