The mother of a former Bay Shore School District student told the principal at Gardiner Manor Elementary School that her son’s third-grade teacher put powder on the boy’s pants and touched his private parts, she testified Friday at the trial of another student who sued the district. alleged abuse.

The mother, now 82, said she believed then-deceased principal Lawrence Senecal and the school district would “take care of any policy or procedure that followed” for teacher Thomas Bernagozzi following his complaint in the spring 1987.

Instead, attorneys for the anonymous plaintiff argued that Bernagozzi was allowed to continue teaching in the district for another 13 years, abusing other students, including the plaintiff.

“What’s going on is horrible,” the mother, whose son also filed a lawsuit against the child victims of the Bay Shore schools, said she told Senecal in late April 1987.

The mother was one of five witnesses, including her son, to testify before Suffolk Superior Court Judge Christopher Modelewski in Riverhead on Friday in the first of 45 CVA lawsuits against Bay Shore to go to trial.

Each complaint alleges abuse by Bernagozzi, 75, of Babylon, who is currently awaiting trial on sodomy, sexual conduct against a child and possession of child sexual abuse material in a criminal case stemming from the civil claims . Bernagozzi pleaded not guilty to these charges.

The mother told the jury that she did not seek to have her son removed from Bernagozzi’s classroom after he informed her of the alleged abuse at the end of the school year. Instead, she demanded that he be seated at the desk furthest from the teacher and removed from the all-male after-school sports program that Bernagozzi ran.

“He wants to be with his friends … (and) he would feel embarrassed if he was taken out,” the mother said of the reasons she gave for keeping her son in Bernagozzi’s class.

When asked why she never notified the police, the mother said she “thought she would take care of Bay Shore Schools.”

The issue of whether the Bay Shore school district had effective notice of the teacher’s alleged abuse is central to the case, which involves a student in Bernagozzi’s third grade class during the 1990-91 school year.

Jeffrey Herman, the plaintiff’s attorney, previously told the jury that his client was between 8 and 9 years old when Bernagozzi sexually abused him, rubbing his abdomen against him while the child sat on his lap, showering with him and touching the boy’s private areas with his hands and mouth. The abuse took place at the school, a health club and public beaches and pools, said Herman, of Herman Law in Manhattan.

Lewis Silverman, the district attorney, sought in his opening statement to distance the district from the actions of his former teacher, who retired in 2000 after 30 years in the classroom.

“The allegations that the plaintiff has made against Mr. Bernagozzi, if you believe them, are absolutely abhorrent, and we do not defend them,” Silverman, of Silverman and Associates in White Plains, told the jury Thursday. “For the district to be liable, there must be notice, actual or implied notice, know or should have known. . . . The evidence will show that the district disputes that it had actual or implied notice.”

Two fathers of students who participated in Bernagozzi’s after-school sports program in the mid-1980s testified that they also spoke with building principals about concerns they had with the time and attention the teacher gave to boys at the school, including taking them. on Broadway he plays in his spare time and bringing them home from school. The parents did not make allegations of sexual abuse in those meetings.

One father, whose son also filed an anonymous CVA claim against the district, said he was told by Senecal that the events were “school-sanctioned” and there was nothing to worry about.

“(Senecal) told me (Bernagozzi’s) activities and everything he was doing was overboard,” the father, a lifelong Bay Shore resident, told the juror. His worries ended there, he said.

All three parents testified that they directly confronted Bernagozzi, who assured them that their children were safe in his care.

During Silverman’s cross-examination, the parents said Bernagozzi was “charismatic,” “deceptive” or “manipulative.”

The jury also heard testimony from an alleged victim Bernagozzi, who said she called the district to report her own previous abuse in February 1991. The man, an anonymous plaintiff in another case against the school district, was not available for comment. to testify in person, Herman said. .

Bay Shore Schools sued Bernagozzi in each of 45 claims, the most against any district under the CVA, a state law that opened a temporary window that ends in 2021 for alleged child sex abuse victims to file claims for compensation. Five cases were previously settled by Bay Shore for $20.25 million.

Bernagozzi will be among the witnesses called to testify when the trial resumes on Monday.

Grant Parpan covers Suffolk County and federal courts for Newsday. A native of Long Island, he joined Newsday in 2022.