A former admissions officer and baseball coach at the Packer Collegiate Institute, a Brooklyn Heights private school, was charged on Thursday in what prosecutors said was the sexual abuse of several children who played on his teams.
The teacher, Nicolas Morton, 31, “consistently made sexual comments, repeatedly insisted that players show him their genitalia and touched their intimate parts on several occasions,” according to prosecutors with the Brooklyn district attorney’s office. At times, he refused to let the boys stop doing “difficult conditioning exercises unless they exposed themselves to him,” prosecutors said.
The seven children Mr. Morton is accused of abusing ranged in age from 12 to 14, prosecutors said, and the alleged conduct occurred mostly in Packer’s gym and at several Brooklyn ball fields, beginning in early 2023 and continuing through this summer. In addition to the school team, Mr. Morton coached a travel squad.
“Coaches are entrusted with nurturing young minds and talents, not exploiting them for personal gratification,” said Eric Gonzalez, the district attorney. “The disturbing details of this case highlight the lasting damage such behavior inflicts on vulnerable youth.”
Mr. Morton is facing a 20-count indictment that includes charges of second-degree course of sexual conduct against a child, as well as third- and first-degree sexual abuse and 13 counts of endangering the welfare of a child.
He pleaded not guilty in a hearing Thursday before Justice Donald Leo. Throughout the session, Mr. Morton, who was wearing a blue checked shirt, stood beside his lawyer and stared down at the table in front of him. His mother and other relatives sat in the gallery, quietly watching.
Mr. Morton was an associate director of financial aid and admissions at the school, according to what appeared to be his personal website and a LinkedIn account under his name. He began working at the school in 2019.
Mr. Morton, of Park Slope, attended Packer as a student through 2012 before attending Washington and Jefferson College in Pennsylvania, where he played baseball.
In July, rumors about Mr. Morton began to circulate among players’ parents, according to prosecutors. Several reported their concerns to the school, which fired him in early August.
In a letter to parents after Mr. Morton’s arrest, Packer’s head of school, Jennifer Weyburn, said that school administrators had received reports that Mr. Morton “had displayed a pattern of inappropriate conversations and interactions with Packer athletes, among other young people affiliated with his travel baseball team.”
Dr. Weyburn said that administrators would be meeting with students “to discuss with them, in an age-appropriate way, that their safety is paramount; that they deserve to be treated with respect and dignity; and that trusted adults stand ready to listen and support them.”
In Mr. Morton’s role at Packer, he helped award “need-based financial aid to incoming and returning students and managed an $11 million budget,” he wrote on his website.
At the same time, prosecutors said, he was abusing children who played for his teams. He used his role as coach to coerce boys into showing him their private parts, according to prosecutors.
Often, they said, Mr. Morton’s requests would start as jokes and later turn into threats, going as far as to tell boys that they would be cut from the team if they did not oblige him.
He often “used illicit tactics to get them to show their genitals such as offering material benefits or telling them they could not stop running or doing other exhaustive drills unless they exposed themselves,” according to a news release from the district attorney’s office.
In court on Thursday, Mr. Morton’s lawyer, Robert W. Georges, told Justice Leo about the strong ties Mr. Morton has to law enforcement — including cousins in the Fire Department and a relative in the Nassau County Police Department who was in court.
Mr. Georges argued that his client should be given supervised release. Mr. Morton was scheduled to be released on Thursday on $75,000 cash bail or $150,000 bond.
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