A retired New York teacher accused of sexually abusing a girl 50 years ago has killed himself at his home, police said.
Sherman Memmelaar, a 74-year-old former gym teacher and coach in the Newburgh School District, was pronounced dead from a single, self-inflicted gunshot wound at his Goshen home early Sunday, police told the Times Herald-Record.
Memmelaar was named in a lawsuit filed in state Supreme Court nine days earlier accusing him of sexually abusing Sandra Burke, 55, on multiple occasions when she attended Union Grove Elementary School from 1969 through 1975.
Memmelaar, who retired in 2001 after coaching football, wrestling and track, vehemently denied the allegations when reached by the newspaper, blasting them as “nonsense” and “crazy” while insisting he had actually worked at another school for part of the alleged time span.
“There is no way I did that,” he insisted to the newspaper. “It’s not true. It didn’t happen.”
But Burke’s attorney insisted the abuse took place on a near-daily basis after the girl was separated from classmates.
“These were regular things,” attorney Evan Foulke told the newspaper. “She was removed from class. She was held after gym class.”
The woman — now a mother of four running for town supervisor in Forestburgh — reported “circumstances that should have raised red flags” to school officials decades ago, but apparently no disciplinary actions were taken, Foulke said.
“This is a woman who was sexually molested as an infant, and she’s not afraid to hold the wrongdoer responsible now that she’s an adult,” the attorney said.
Burke — one of hundreds to file suit in New York since August under the Child Victims Act, which gives victims a one-year opportunity to bring old cases to court — also named the Newburgh school district as a defendant in her suit, which is seeking unspecified damages.
A spokeswoman for the school declined to comment on pending litigation, the Times Herald-Record reports.
The school where the alleged abuse took place was torn down in 1981, when Memmelaar, other staffers and students moved to Meadow Hill Elementary School, according to the lawsuit.
The legal proceeding will continue against Memmelaar’s estate and the district despite the former teacher’s suicide, which defies his previous denial, Foulke said.
“Sandra has been deprived of an opportunity to confront him in a courtroom,” the attorney said. “It was a cowardly admission of guilt.”