WARNING: This report includes references to the sexual abuse of a child. While graphic details of that abuse are not included, reader discretion is advised.
WORCESTER – A recent release of 23 pages of documents by the Worcester Police Department sheds new light on the allegations made by Heather Prunier, of Worcester, that she endured sexual abuse by former Worcester School Committee member and former Belmont Street Community School Principal John Monfredo from 1991 to 1994, when she was between nine and 12 years old.
The 23 pages include four elements not made public in the nearly 30 years since the investigation occurred:
- Police interviewed witnesses related to Prunier’s allegations as early as January 1996. Previously published information indicated that the investigation occurred between January and April 1997.
- Weeks after Worcester Public Schools placed Monfredo on administrative leave pending the outcome of the investigation, a detective investigating the allegations documented in official records their assessment that the crime being investigated was indecent assault and battery on a child under 14 years old. Had the determined determined that no crime occurred, the record would likely show that.
- A Worcester Police officer indicates in a police report that the Department of Social Services (DSS) (now the Department of Children and Families [DCF]) supported a 51-A report report of child abuse related to the allegations against Monfredo. The term “supported” used by DSS is synonymous with substantiated, meaning the agency found reasonable cause to believe the abuse occurred.
- Such a finding typically designates the subject “unsuitable to work with children” and prohibits that individual from working in a school. It is unclear whether the agency later overturned this finding.
- A Worcester Police detective interviewed Prunier about her allegations on Sept. 1, 1998, at the Worcester County District Attorney’s office while a Massachusetts assistant attorney general observed. This occurred nearly 18 months after Monfredo returned from administrative leave to work at Belmont Street Community School in April 1997. According to the report, the assistant attorney general advocated for the interview to be videotaped, but a “previous agreement” made between a Worcester County assistant district attorney and the WPD prevented recording the interview.
As This Week in Worcester previously reported, John Conte, then the Worcester County District Attorney, and a long-time friend of Monfredo, declined to prosecute.
In 2023, in an article by Bill Shaner at Worcester Sucks and I Love It, Heather Prunier publicly acknowledged for the first time that she is the woman who reported sexual abuse by Monfredo to police on the last day of 1996, when she was 15 years old.
Monfredo coached the softball team Prunier played with when she says the abuse took place. Monfredo has publicly said that “he was never alone” with Prunier during the time she alleges the abuse took place.
Prunier submitted a request for records related to the case to the Worcester Police Department (WPD), which released the 23 pages of documents on Oct. 24. Prunier made the full release of documents available to This Week in Worcester.
Reports Began in 1995
Prunier sat for an interview with police on Dec. 31, 1996, when she was 15 years old. Later that night, she attempted suicide.
A formal investigation began in January 1997. Worcester Public Schools (WPS) placed Monfredo on leave pending the results of the investigation. He returned to his position as principal of Belmont Street Community School in April 1997.
The newly released documents show that staff at Forest-Grove Junior High School became concerned in 1995, based on Heather’s behavior and conversations with her.
One police report released shows that in a statement to police in January 1996, one teacher said that Heather “had been a very bubbly student,” but that in May 1995, he noticed Heather appeared unhappy over multiple days. He twice inquired about her demeanor, but both times Heather said everything was fine. The second time, she asked if she could talk to the teacher after school.
During that after-school session, Heather started crying. She asked the teacher if he would keep what she told him a secret.
The teacher told police he explained that some things he’s not allowed to keep secret when related to actions like theft, drugs, assault, and sexual harassment. When asked if one of those subjects related to what she wanted to talk about, Heather replied yes. She provided no additional information.
The teacher encouraged her to tell her parents, regardless of what bothered her.
The following day, Heather approached the same teacher during class and told him she’s ready to talk now. When he stepped outside the classroom with her, Heather asked, “What is sexual harassment?” The teacher says he gave some examples, then asked if what bothered her ranged “from the lowest level, verbal, to the highest of forced physical, what is somewhere in between there?
After Heather told the teacher that it did, he walked with her to the office of the vice principal.
The documents also show police questioned the vice principal in January 1997 about her interaction with Heather.
She described to the police that she had a long conversation with Heather that day. Heather eventually revealed her softball coach had abused her upon her arrival at practice. The abuse began with hugging and kissing on the face and over time proceeded to touching and beyond.
The police report says that the vice principal told police she didn’t remember that Heather provided any additional identifying information about the abuser, except that he was her softball coach.
“Found As” Ind A+B >14
One document released to Prunier shows the detective investigating the allegations against Monfredo documented that the allegations were “found as” indecent assault and battery on a child under 14 years old. The report indicates the allegations were “reported as” the same crime.
“Found as” is not a judicial finding, but expresses the investigator’s assessment of the crime being investigated at the time of creating the report. This field can list another crime, if the investigator determined the original report was in error, or list that a finding of “none.”
This language appears at the top of a report on the questioning of the lead custodian at Belmont Street Schoo, where Prunier said the abuse took place. An image of this portion of the document can be found at the bottom of this page.
Establishing Opportunity
Monfredo’s only public comments about the allegations against him were his claim he was “never alone with that girl.”
Police reports indicate that Monfredo held softball practices inside the gymnasium at Belmont Street School on Saturdays over the winter, during school vacations, or at other times when weather prohibited practicing outdoors.
Prunier told the police that she often arrived at practice late, after all her other teammates. When Monfredo held practice at Belmont Street School, girls knocked on a door for access to the building. Prunier told police that Monfredo often responded to allow her into the building.
The most serious abuse occurred below a small stairwell near the entrance in an area that prevented others then in the building from seeing what occurred, according to Prunier. She told police that these encounters, which sometimes included violence, lasted only a few minutes each.
A police report shows that on Jan. 28, 1997, an officer interviewed the senior custodian at Belmont Street School. The custodian told investigators that protocol required a custodian on duty if more than 30 people were present. Monfredo’s softball practices numbered under 20.
Caffone also told police that although only the gymnasium and adjacent bathrooms were open to the team, Monfredo had keys to the entire building.
Both Robert and Gretched Prunier, Heather’s parents, told police they recalled times when Monfredo gave Heather a ride home from softball practice and arrived alone in his car with her.
Both parents also said that Monfredo had called their home at least twice, saying he’d be happy to come pick up Heather to go swimming with his daughter. Heather declined.
They both also said that Monfredo had told them separately on multiple occasions how he wished his daughter were more like Heather.
After the WPD investigation, the department forwarded the case to Worcester County District Attorney John Conte’s office. Conte declined to pursue charges against his longtime friend.
Mass. Law Enables Survivor Access to Rape, Sexual Assault Records
Mass. Gen. Laws Chapter 41 § 97D, which governs access to the documents Prunier seeks, says that “reports of rape and sexual assault or attempts to commit such offenses, all reports of abuse perpetrated by family or household members” and “all communications between police officers and victims of such offenses or abuse shall not be public reports and shall be maintained by the police departments in a manner that shall assure their confidentiality.”
The same section provides an exemption for survivors of those reported crimes, saying that, “all such reports shall be accessible at all reasonable times, upon written request, to: (i) the victim, the victim’s attorney, others specifically authorized by the victim to obtain such information, prosecutors,” and select few others.
The WPD provided no rationale for the documents it released or those it withheld.
