Civil Suit Alleges Wide-Ranging Failures To Stop Former CAHS Staffer’s Abuses

A complaint filed in U.S. District Court this week named the Virgin Islands government, Education and Human Services departments and staff members in an expansive civil suit over failures to address allegations against Alfredo Bruce Smith, the former hall monitor and track coach who terrorized Charlotte Amalie High School students for one-and-a-half decades.

The suit was filed anonymously by a survivor of Smith’s abuses, identified in the complaint as John Doe. In addition to government departments, the suit specifically names CAHS Principal Alcede Edwards, whom the complaint describes as “a school official with a duty to report alleged abuse” and someone with actual knowledge of Smith’s crimes, and teacher Camelia Febres, described as “someone who knew Plaintiff feared being forced into a room” with Smith during a March 2019 school trip to Puerto Rico.

Also named are 20 fictitious defendants, or “as-yet unidentified school officials, board members, teachers, coaches, social workers, administrators, or other employees or agents of the GVI, VIDE, BOE, and/or VIDHS” who knew or should have known about Smith’s years of abuses or who otherwise failed to safeguard students. “Fictitious pleading is required here because the Defendants and others have made efforts to conceal the identities” of those employees and officials, wrote attorney Daniel Cevallos of the New York-based law firm Cevallos and Wong.