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Child sex assault case in Bethany sounds alarm on town-run camps

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Jessica Pagonis had a nagging sensation that something wasn’t quite right.

No one asked her to sign her child in at drop-off during a Bethany Parks and Recreation-run camp during spring break. Instead, she watched her kindergarten-age daughter wander into the building alone, without an adult stationed at the door to greet her.

“I had a gut feeling,” said Pagonis, “but when it’s your child care option, you put your trust in the town and the people running it to do the job that’s expected.”

Another local mom, Jeanette Savo, also questioned the way Bethany’s municipal programs were run, especially after her son was injured by another child and staff seemed hesitant to write up a report. Another day, she stopped by to speak with the department’s assistant director and said she found him napping on the job. But Savo needed the after school care provided by Bethany Parks and Rec.

“You might ask, why did I send my kid there?” Savo said, “But there was no other choice, really.” Pricier child care was out of the question.

Until this spring, mixed reviews of Parks and Rec from moms like Savo and Pagonis were little more than a mundane reality in Bethany, something people talked about on the playground. The programs were economical and convenient, a lifesaver for working parents. They were a social place for kids to play instead of sitting in front of screens.

But in May and then again in June, Anthony Mastrangelo, a longtime counselor in the summer camps and after-school programs and a substitute teacher at the elementary school, was charged with two counts of first-degree sexual assault, four counts of illegal sexual contact, five counts of fourth-degree sexual assault and one count of risk of injury to a minor. Most of those alleged crimes are said to have occurred during Bethany Parks and Rec programs. On many occasions, Mastrangelo is accused of putting his hand down children’s pants, according to the warrants for his arrest.

The case is raising all kinds of anguished second-guessing in Bethany. Parents and former staff are looking back at complaints about how the municipal programs were run, wondering whether lax rules and poor supervision of both staff and children might have created an environment where such alleged abuse could thrive.

They’re also asking why it took police so long to make an arrest — over a year after the first allegations were reported, during which time another girl said she was abused. They want to know whether their first selectwoman, Paula Cofrancesco, did enough to protect local children, given her friendship with the alleged perpetrator and his family, and with Parks and Rec leadership — Cofrancesco’s own nephew and cousin.

But the case has implications that go far beyond Bethany.

Connecticut law allows municipal programs for children to operate with no state regulation or oversight, in contrast to programs run by private companies and nonprofits, which must be licensed by the state. Municipal programs instead fall under the umbrella of their local governments, which set their own standards — like whether counselors receive background checks or whether water quality is tested.

Some parents and state officials say the case demonstrates that municipalities, which vary widely in size, resources and personnel, are not qualified to ensure the safety of such programs and shouldn’t be able to set standards themselves.

Other legislators and those representing municipal programs elsewhere in the state argue that such regulation would not have prevented what happened in Bethany, that the case is the unfortunate result of one alleged bad actor, and that requiring these programs to be licensed would potentially increase their costs and therefore hurt working parents who depend on their services.

But all seem to agree the Bethany case should spur some regulatory changes regarding mandated reporter training and background checks.

At least in Bethany, details that once seemed minor — from campers allowed to spend time unsupervised to lapses in legally required mandated reporter training — have become suddenly consequential.

Small town

The first alleged victim in Bethany, a 9-year-old girl, came forward in December of 2022. During her interview with police and forensic experts at the Yale Family Advocacy Center, she identified three other female victims. Those three girls were interviewed at Yale as well. They described Mastrangelo repeatedly putting his hand down their pants at Parks and Rec programs, according to arrest warrants.

Mastrangelo, who is now 25 years old, was also a substitute teacher at the Bethany Community School. When school officials learned of the charges against him, Mastrangelo was removed from his work with children there. School superintendent Kai Byrd declined a request to be interviewed for this story. Connecticut’s Department of Children and Families launched an investigation, as did the state trooper assigned to Bethany at the time, Ewerton Gouveia.

Bethany first selectwoman Paula Cofrancesco listens to town residents during a board meting on Oct. 1, 2024. Credit: Shahrzad Rasekh / CT Mirror

Though Mastrangelo was also removed from his work with children at Parks and Rec in December 2022, according to a statement released by Cofrancesco this summer, he remained employed in an administrative role for months, working from town hall. According to his personnel file, he was terminated in June 2023. His initial hire date is listed as August 2015.

Bethany is a small town of around 5,500 people, and the Parks and Rec facilities, town hall and elementary school all sit side by side on a small campus. Mastrangelo remained in relatively close proximity to children even after he was removed from working with children (at a town meeting, Cofrancesco, the first selectwoman, said Mastrangelo was cleaning out a closet during this time).

For well over a year after the initial allegations were made and police conducted interviews, according to the warrants, there was no arrest, and police haven’t explained the delay.

“Investigations which may be complex or have many moving parts take time to investigate, whether that be to gather evidence, interview witnesses, or analyze forensic data,” State Police wrote in response to questions about the delay from The Connecticut Mirror. “The process may involve collaboration with various specialists and law enforcement agencies to piece together the puzzle.”

Meanwhile, most people in Bethany were unaware of the case. Amy Lestinsky said that was the case for her as well, despite being heavily involved in town affairs.

As of May 2024, Lestinsky sat on the Board of Education and the Parks and Rec commission, and she was a member of the Republican Town Committee, the party Cofrancesco represents. Lestinsky’s children knew Mastrangelo through Parks and Rec programs, and she often employed him as a babysitter.

Amy Lestinsky reads a statement at a board meeting in Bethany’s town hall. Credit: Shahrzad Rasekh / CT Mirror

For a school assignment, Lestinsky’s daughter once made a list of trusted adults, putting “my babysitter Anthony” first — above her parents. But, in May, Lestinsky said her daughter told her Mastrangelo had sexually assaulted her the previous night. Lestinsky quickly went to the state trooper then assigned to the town, identified in the warrant as Trooper Ryan Piccirillo.

Lestinsky’s 11-year-old daughter was interviewed by police and experts with the forensics team at the Yale Family Advocacy Center, and Lestinsky learned about the four other cases. When Lestinsky found out how long ago those accusations had been made — 17 months prior, with no arrest made — she was furious.

“My child would have been spared if something had been done, so it has been my plight since this all broke to be vocal,” Lestinsky said. “I know there are people in this town that don’t agree with it, but they’re not in my shoes.”

Lestinsky said carefully considered her decision to go public with the accusations and has spoken to multiple media outlets before speaking with the CT Mirror.

Lestinsky said she followed up constantly with police, and on May 24, a warrant for Mastrangelo’s arrest was issued for sexual assault in the first and fourth degrees, and risk of injury to a minor. He was released on bond and arrested again in June, this time charged with risk of injury to a minor, first and fourth degree sexual assault, and illegal sexual contact. He is currently out on bail and has pleaded not guilty to all the charges.

Since Mastrangelo’s arrest, the Office of the Child Advocate launched an investigation into the matter, and the Office of Early Childhood is looking at the case as a possible sign that state regulation of municipal programs for children is needed.

‘Put Kids First’

Signs displayed across town call for first selectwoman Paula Cofrancesco’s resignation. Credit: Shahrzad Rasekh / CT Mirror

The allegations have turned the town of Bethany upside down. Town meetings have become crowded forums where tears and recriminations erupt, much of the anger directed at Cofrancesco. Cofrancesco has refused to step down, despite many town residents demanding she do so. And ultimately, the ball is in Cofrancesco’s court: there is no legal mechanism to oust her.

Some households have put yellow and black signs on their lawns reading, “Put Kids First, Paula Time to Go.” Naomi Rosenstein, who lives directly across the street from the first selectman, has three signs in her front yard. She’s even positioned one of them above a light, so the message is waiting for Cofrancesco if she comes home after dark.

Cofrancesco has acknowledged that she was friendly with the family of the accused, particularly his mother, who was also a part-time secretary at the local elementary school. Before the accusations came to public attention, Cofrancesco posted photos on social media of herself with her own family and the accused during a vacation at Lake George in the summer of 2023, wearing matching blue T-shirts. After Mastrangelo lost his job at Parks and Rec, Cofrancesco publicly acknowledged that her husband’s insurance company hired him.

Cofrancesco has repeatedly said that while she was aware that there were allegations made against Mastrangelo that prohibited him from being around children, she wasn’t aware that they were sexual in nature. Many residents say they don’t believe Cofrancesco, given her relationship with Mastrangelo’s family, her acknowledgement that she was aware that he had been removed from working with children, and the fact that both of the top directors of the Parks and Rec program at the time are her own relatives — former Parks and Rec director Janice Howard is her cousin through marriage, and former assistant director Anthony Cofrancesco is her nephew.

In her role as first selectwoman, Cofrancesco is technically the town’s chief of police, according to Dave Merriam, the administrative lieutenant in Bethany. Bethany’s previous first selectman, Derrlyn Gorski, a Democrat, says she frequently met with the town’s assigned state trooper during her 16 years in the role and was kept apprised of ongoing cases. Though the trooper assigned to that role changed periodically, that didn’t affect the regularity of her meetings, she said.

“If the cops weren’t doing anything, she should have been on the phone,” demanding action, Gorski said. “I don’t understand how she could have not known.”

Asked through Bethany’s town attorney, Vincent Marino, if she had regrets about her handling of the matter, Cofrancesco did not acknowledge any, responding instead that, “there were no complaints from anyone about the Parks and Recreation Department’s operation or its staff. There was no indication that there was an alleged predator amongst us.”

Bethany’s town attorney Vincent Marino reacts to selectwoman Gina Texeira confronting Cofrancesco at the start of a board meeting. Credit: Shahrzad Rasekh / CT Mirror

Cofrancesco wrote she will always feel pain in her soul for “what the children claimed happened to them.” She has said that the community should “move on,” including during a Board of Selectmen meeting on Sept. 19, when she had a heated exchange with Gina Texeira, also a selectwoman in Bethany.

“We’ve belabored things way too long. I’m tired of lollygagging, stonewalling, we’ve gotta move,” Cofrancesco said. “It breaks my heart that what happened happened. It happened, we moved on. We do the best we can and here we are. But stuff has to move on, we’re just not moving forward, we’re stuck in a quagmire, and I’m tired of it.”

Texeira interjected, “I’m just sitting here in shock that you could say that you’ve moved on. Well, some people in town have not moved on, and I just want to say that for them.”

Paula Cofrancesco recuses herself from a discussion regarding an independent investigation at a board meeting on Oct. 1, 2024. Credit: Shahrzad Rasekh / CT Mirror

Moving past the issue seems to be a far-off prospect for Bethany. The town has hired an independent law firm to conduct an investigation into how the matter was handled, in addition to the investigation underway by the Office of the Child Advocate and the ongoing criminal case against Mastrangelo.

The Parks and Rec department abruptly closed at the end of the summer, leaving 46 children without after school care, a crisis averted when an arrangement was made with a nearby Jewish Community Center in Woodbridge to accept children into its aftercare program. Bethany taxpayers will foot the bill for the difference in cost, according to Marino. Bethany has since reconvened its Parks and Rec Commission and has scheduled a youth basketball program this winter. Whether Bethany will eventually relaunch its aftercare program remains to be seen.

And, in September, nine members of the Bethany Republican Town Committee resigned — members of Cofrancesco’s own party.

Locals have also expressed concern that the case will have an economic impact on Bethany residents, if families of the alleged victims sue the town. And, given the nature of media attention, locals say they’re worried the case will impact real estate values.

Licensing Exception

Bethany Town Hall Credit: Shahrzad Rasekh / CT Mirror

But the case also has implications that go far beyond this small community. Unlike programs for children operated by private companies and nonprofits, in Connecticut there’s no state-level authority that licenses municipal camps, checks up on them or investigates complaints. Rather, municipal programs are under the jurisdiction of each of the state’s 169 local governments, which vary widely in size and complexity. (A small fraction of municipal camps that receive federal Care 4 Kids funding do receive some oversight).

“We think licensing is a good thing,” said Beth Bye, the commissioner of the Office of Early Childhood, which is responsible for licensing and investigating non-municipal summer camps in Connecticut. “Unfortunately, this incident brings to the fore that there are bad actors out there.”

Many parents who send their children to municipal camps may not realize that the state does not require these programs to comply with the same health and safety checks as licensed camps. Those requirements include background checks on all camp staff, water quality tests, and proof that staff are trained to lead potentially dangerous programs like firing ranges or archery classes. Lifeguards at licensed camps must be certified, there must be a certain number of bathrooms depending on the number of campers, and there has to be adequate staffing to ensure the supervision of children, according to specific state ratios of staff to children. While many municipal camps likely require the same measures, they are under no legal obligation to comply with these standards.

But legislative attempts to license municipal camps have received overwhelming opposition from towns across Connecticut, and from groups like the Connecticut Parks and Recreation Association. A bill brought before the Children’s Committee in 2023 that attempted to regulate camps died after dozens of Parks and Rec directors submitted statements of opposition.

Among those letters is statement from Cofrancesco, who wrote that licensing municipal programs would prove too costly and create too much paperwork, arguing that municipal oversight was sufficient.

This kind of opposition has been raised every time the Children’s Committee tries to make incremental progress on the issue, according to committee co-chair Rep. Liz Linehan, D-Cheshire. Even legislation that would require municipalities to post safety reports about programs for children on their own websites has been loudly opposed.

“I can tell you what they tell us,” Linehan said. “What they tell us is that they believe this is a creep toward licensure,” which would require municipalities to adhere to the same staffing ratios and other requirements as licensed camps, which many municipalities say would make their programs too expensive to run. Linehan says she has pledged to find middle ground on some of the more costly issues like staffing ratios, or hiring medical personnel, as required at licensed programs. “We don’t even have the data to know exactly what the problems are. We just wanted that transparency.”

The creation of a Youth Safety Advisory Council was mandated by the legislature this past session to discuss some of these issues. Linehan said she is hopeful that the case in Bethany will create some momentum around the issue in the 2025 legislative session.

Valerie Stolfi Collins, executive director of the Connecticut Parks and Rec Association, which counts 134 of the state’s 169 municipalities as members, says regulation and oversight are needed for private camps because they fall outside of the protective umbrella of local government.

“Municipalities have town managers, risk managers, town attorneys,” Stolfi Collins said. “Parks and Rec programs also answer to their first selectman and constituents.” Therefore, anyone with a complaint can report it to their municipality. “We believe that our camps with those levels of oversight are very well run and well managed.”

But not everyone agrees. Rep. Patrick Boyd, D-Pomfret, says that, while many municipalities are already running programs for children according to a comparable set of rules, inevitably some are falling through the cracks.

“Who is holding them accountable?” Boyd asked. “Their argument would be, ‘That’s what the town council does.’ But in really small towns, there may just be a couple of people in town government trying to offer something in their community — which is a noble goal. But it needs to be safe.”

Stolfi Collins says the group encourages, but cannot mandate, professional development for its members and has facilitated the training of counselors as mandated reporters. But the association is not a regulatory agency and membership is optional. Bethany, for example, has never been a member, according to Stolfi Collins.

Yet not all municipal governments oppose more regulation. Mike Walsh, the town manager of Granby, says that he would support reasonable changes that would create more safeguards for children.

“I am not comfortable with anybody who says ‘That won’t happen here,’” Walsh said, adding that many professions in the state are subject to licensing requirements, like nurses and contractors. “If we protect our residents from contractors that may not be doing a good job, then we sure as hell should be protecting your children from bad actors.”

The controversy in Bethany shines light on some of the pitfalls of a municipality taking responsibility for running a program for children, Boyd said. For example, the municipality may or may not verify that counselors running these programs have received proper training.

Former counselor Nick Bottone, who worked in Bethany programs for over a decade, said that he was never trained as a mandated reporter, which would have required him to report child abuse and neglect concerns to DCF. A statute that went into effect in 2022 requires staff age 21 and over at youth camps to be trained as mandated reporters. Bottone was already over 21 when that law went into effect, but he said he never got the training.

After the allegations against Mastrangelo came to light, Parks and Rec director Janice Howard resigned, assistant director Anthony Cofrancesco was put on administrative leave, and Bottone took over as interim director. He said that one of his first actions was to train all of the staff as mandated reporters, even those as young as 18, going above and beyond what the statute requires, since so few staff members were over 21.

Leadership at both the Parks and Recreation Association and the Office of Early Childhood say they would support changing the mandated reporter statute to include younger staff members. The training itself is free and done online.

Parents of involved children and allies whisper to each other during a board meeting in Bethany’s town hall. Credit: Shahrzad Rasekh / CT Mirror

Background Checks

Notably, the background check requirement is considered a significant burden by the Parks and Rec Association because they would be conducted by the state at a higher cost than many programs currently pay (around $88 per background check, according to the Office of Early Childhood).

Bye says that mandating these checks offers at least two benefits. The check itself ensures that applicants don’t have a history of sexual abuse. The assurance that a check will be done serves as a deterrent to potential predators, who know they need not apply.

But the reverse is also true.

“If they know there is a group of folks that don’t background check, that’s where they’ll go looking for work.”

“I think there’s fear of change,” Bye said, adding that cost-effective child care is also top of mind for the agency. “If you don’t have affordable child care options, you force people into more unregulated situations. I’d say our requirements are not onerous, and it’s basic health and safety we’re looking to protect.”

Bye suggested there may be a middle road to creating more oversight without adding excessive costs, particularly when it comes to rules around background checks and mandated reporter training. The Office of Early Childhood could also be empowered to receive and investigate complaints about municipal programs.

“I think it’s a conversation worth having,” Bye said.

Bethany Community School sits next to the Board of Education building and the town hall. Credit: Shahrzad Rasekh / CT Mirror

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