On January 17, 2025, Nicholas Ricciardi, a teacher for the Solomon Schechter private Jewish day school in West Hartford, was arrested for felony risk of injury, or impairing the morals of a child, and misdemeanor breach of peace for allegedly tickling a young child in the area of her bellybutton, causing the child distress, and concerning the parents who met with school officials.

West Hartford police had been alerted to Ricciardi’s interactions with the child after receiving a referral from the Connecticut Department of Children and Families (DCF) on December 13, 2024. The arrest warrant describes changes in the six-year-old girl – who will be referred to as Amy – as listed by her mother – who will be referred to as Kathy.

According to both the arrest report and the DCF report, Kathy said Amy had become withdrawn, and at times defiant; she was now afraid to sleep alone in her room, needing the lights on, and Amy described Ricciardi as “a bad man,” and that “he hurt her.”

“Within the DCF referral, it states that The Victim was inappropriately touched by her teacher multiple times while attending the Solomon Schecter (sic) Day School,” the arrest warrant states. “The Victim’s mother has reportedly contacted the school about that information and she was told by the Head of the private school Jonathan Berger that they would be conducting their own investigation and contacting their legal team.”

When West Hartford Police contacted Ricciardi to interview him about the allegations, Ricciardi did not return their calls for a meeting. When they did finally get a hold of him after “several days” he pleaded the fifth, and the officer moved forward with the arrest.

Ricciardi’s arrest on January 17, 2025, garnered ample media attention, most of which was published six days later on January 23, when reporters finally got hold of the story. However, it was West Hartford resident Mark Walsh, a well-sourced former firefighter who was in touch with Kathy, who went on the WTIC Reese on the Radio show on January 17, and announced the arrest had been made. 

Head of the Solomon Schecter Day School Rabbi Jonathan Berger then sent an email to school parents the following day, saying that many of them may have heard of the arrest, that Ricciardi had been on leave for several weeks, and warning the parents against disseminating misinformation.

“We all understand that false information often spreads faster than the truth,” Berger wrote. “Yesterday afternoon, there were already individuals sharing a mix of facts, half-truths, and blatant falsehoods regarding this situation. We will be as timely and transparent as possible to address your concerns.”

Another email to parents on January 19 laid out the school’s version of events: they had been approached by a parent in November about the alleged tickling of a student, immediately placed Ricciardi on leave, began a “preliminary inquiry,” reported their findings to DCF — which chose not to investigate — and Ricciardi thus returned to the classroom. A second parent then came forward in December with similar concerns, and they again placed Ricciardi on leave, and began a second inquiry into the allegations.

“At the same time, we understand that another report was made to DCF, and DCF decided to open an investigation,” Berger’s January 18, 2025, email states. “Throughout the situation, we responded quickly, and worked promptly with all government agencies. To the best of our knowledge, tickling on the student’s abdomen was the full extent of the reported behavior.”

School leadership was clearly concerned, however, with the “half-truths” and “falsehoods” regarding Ricciardi’s behavior spreading on social media and began to crack down in online parent forums when the parent of another girl who was allegedly tickled by Ricciardi began to raise concerns about the school’s response to the allegations and how many other families may have been involved.

A mother – who we will call Nancy — of a second child who was tickled by Ricciardi wrote in a parent group chat that she was aware of other families who had brought concerns about Ricciardi’s behaviors to school officials. The chat, however, reportedly included a Solomon Schechter board member, and there was an immediate response from Berger, who emailed parents that same day, calling Nancy out by name.

“I’m aware that reports from parents at other schools are now being posted on Facebook and other locations; they are saying that he acted irresponsibly and possibly harmfully at other schools,” Berger continued. “No action seems to have been taken by those schools. In other words, we may be the first school to have actually done something about the concerns. We are the ones who actually acted.”

The DCF investigation that led to Ricciardi’s arrest, however, did not originate from the Solomon Schechter school. 

While an official at Solomon Schechter did reach out to DCF on December 2, 2024, regarding the tickling of Amy, the school official did so anonymously, according to emails between Kathy and Ken Mysogland at DCF, and DCF officials did not believe the anonymous report they received met the criteria for an investigation.

It was not until DCF received a report from the Bristol Public School system on December 12 that they investigated the matter. At this point, Kathy had withdrawn her children from Solomon Schechter over their handling of the allegations and was trying to enroll them in public school. 

During a conversation with Bristol Director of Special Services Amy Martino, Kathy revealed why she had pulled her children from Solomon Schechter. Martino then made a report to DCF, they opened a case and referred it to West Hartford police who also began investigating. That was on December 13, nearly three weeks after Kathy had originally brought her concerns to Solomon Schechter officials.

According to emails, text messages, and interviews, both Kathy and Nancy say school officials tried to downplay concerns over Ricciardi’s behavior and the number of children involved, were more concerned with their legal liability than the safety of the children, and were reluctant to report the matter to DCF. 

According to emails, the school encouraged Kathy to return Amy to the classroom and tried to hold a “restorative justice” meeting between six-year-old Amy and Ricciardi to address the tickling behavior. Then, according to the two mothers, school officials tried to paint themselves as having acted swiftly and transparently following Ricciardi’s well-publicized arrest.

Nancy says she met with the head of learning and curriculum Sarah Montag to discuss her concerns about Ricciardi tickling her daughter, and in that meeting she was informed that, “ideally, when something like this happens the school would control the narrative.”

“I remember telling her, we really need more transparency, we need to know what’s happening,” Nancy said in an interview. “That was her response; that ideally, they would control the narrative and they would control what’s being shared. It really, really rubbed me the wrong way.”

“The school is trying to engage in a coverup,” Kathy said in an interview with Inside Investigator. “The school is trying to keep this internal; they don’t want it to blow up, they want to try to smooth it over with the parents.”

According to a Wednesday, November 27, 2024, email from Rabbi Berger to Kathy, the school sought their attorney’s advice regarding her concerns and would conduct its own investigation before reporting anything to the authorities, which is allowable under state statutes regarding mandated reporters.

“Based on our lawyer’s advice, we have to investigate before reporting to authorities, and so we are looking into the incidents,” Berger wrote. “We expect to know more about next steps on Monday after our next meeting with the lawyer, and will keep you informed.”

“I think one thing is clear, tickling a student in 1^st grade is NOT an acceptable behavior,” Kathy responded. “I kindly asked our doctor to hold off reporting pending our conversation… are you telling me that you are delaying reporting pending legal advice?”

Less than a week later, Kathy received an email from Berger indicating that under state statute they have the right to conduct their own investigation before making a DCF referral to determine if there is “reasonable cause.”

“At this time, we do not believe that the alleged conduct required us to make a mandatory report – but we decided to leave this to DCF, after your recent communications in which you attributed certain changes in [Amy] to Mr. Ricciardi’s conduct. At this time, we are waiting to hear back from DCF,” Berger wrote in a December 2 email. “Our practice is not to discuss a pending matter once it has been reported; this includes any discussion surrounding Mr. Ricciardi’s employment with the School. Although he is out today, I am making no representations about his attendance, one way or another, in the future. At this time, he is still employed in good standing. Your decision not to return the children to school is your decision to make.”

Berger did not indicate to Kathy that the DCF call was made anonymously.

In April of 2025, Ricciardi was arrested again for risk of injury to a child and breach of peace, this time for similar incidents that took place while he was a gym teacher at St. Gabriel School in Windsor, his employer prior to Solomon Schechter. 

Those incidents at St. Gabriel were referenced in the DCF report, which redacted most of Ricciardi’s history with Child Protective Services, but missed these couple paragraphs. All in all, there appeared to be three separate reports about Ricciardi to DCF prior to the Solomon Schechter incident.

Both the anonymous report to DCF of Ricciardi’s behavior at St. Gabriel and the Windsor Police arrest report describe the touching, tickling, rough housing, and potential “grooming,” of a seven-year-old girl. “Through my experience as a law enforcement officer, I understand that this behavior is consistent with grooming behavior by adults toward children,” the arresting officer wrote.

“They hired a bad guy who DCF let slip through the cracks,” Kathy said. “Had they handled things differently, my kids would still be in school there right now, but my kids were not going to go to a school where my kids were being touched and made to feel uncomfortable.”

Ricciardi has plead not guilty to all charges in both arrests and remains out on bond. DCF did not sustain any allegations against him.

It wasn’t just the tickling of her child by an adult male teacher that Kathy found inappropriate, there were also health considerations that made the behavior potentially dangerous. Kathy’s children were all born with a rare heart condition that makes them eligible for the Make a Wish program, but Amy’s situation was even more severe; she also had a bleeding disorder and Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, which makes her skin especially fragile. 

At six years old, Amy had already undergone preventative heart surgery at the Mayo Clinic and had dietary restrictions. Therefore, the rough kind of tickling Ricciardi had allegedly engaged in — and which Amy described as painful — could trigger a severe reaction.

All of this Kathy says she had explicitly told all the new teachers at the beginning of the school year, including Ricciardi. She also warned him regarding Amy’s food allergies and to be extra cautious when food was involved in school activities.

“It’s very important that I speak to teachers, because something as minute as a papercut requires Amy to get medical attention and a lot of times medication,” Kathy said.

Despite this, on her first day of school, Ricciardi shared part of his lunch – cucumbers — with Amy. While she was in his class, Ricciardi would allegedly regularly touch Amy’s food. 

Although Amy’s parents were aware that Ricciardi shared cucumbers with her on the first day of class, they did not report it. They were also not aware that he would touch the food in her lunch box and pretend to steal it, and then offer her food after that.

It was not until Amy’s older sister – who we will call Claire — came home one day and said that, “[Amy’s] teacher is a pervert as he was touching [Amy], and you have to do something about it,” that Kathy and her husband became concerned. Claire said she had witnessed Ricciardi tickling Amy beneath her belly button, but above her panty line, in the cafeteria that day. 

That’s when the story started to unfold and when some of Amy’s recent behavioral changes started to make sense to Kathy. Amy said that she only ever saw Ricciardi tickle her, that he tickled her often, and that she was his favorite. 

Kathy remained hesitant to raise too much concern, however, and so began to ask around. A teacher indicated they had observed Ricciardi tickling other students but didn’t think it was a problem. That same teacher told a social worker that when Ricciardi would tickle other students, he was in “dad mode.” Most fellow teachers downplayed the tickling both to Kathy and in official DCF interviews.

One teacher claimed that Ricciardi “placed his hand on her buttocks area” when she hugged him, congratulating him on the birth of his child, according to the police report. DCF interviewed the teacher who admitted the hug made her uncomfortable and became “emotional” during the interview when recounting how Kathy reached out to her about the tickling because “she felt he was now touching children.”

The same teacher later states she believes she overreacted, assumed the worst, and cut off communication with Kathy, according to the DCF report. However, text messages between Kathy and the teacher show the teacher had serious misgivings about Ricciardi, expressed concern for Amy, and was supportive of Kathy coming forward.

“You don’t even know where to go when you hear something like that,” Kathy told Inside Investigator. “Because, as a parent, your mind doesn’t want to go there. You want to believe that this is something innocent.”

It wasn’t until three weeks later, after she kept her children home from school for a week to assess the situation and get all the details from them, a Make-A-Wish trip to Hawaii for Kathy’s older daughter, and conversations with other teachers in the school, that Kathy finally brought her concerns to school officials, whereupon Berger informed her the school would conduct its own investigation. 

At this point, her kids had been out of school for multiple weeks because, according to Kathy, she wasn’t taking her concerns to Solomon Schechter lightly; she wanted to be sure before she made an issue of it but, she says, it was an email she sent to Ricciardi on November 23 requesting he not tickle Amy that really concerned her.

“I understand that nothing was meant by your friendly gesture, of course, and we appreciate your support and our expectation that no one should touch or tickle [Amy],” Kathy wrote.

Ricciardi replied the following day: “Heard and understood… Thanks for bringing this to my attention. Appreciate it.”

It was the terse reply that caused Kathy and her husband concern; an email from a parent to a teacher asserting that their young child should not be touched, in Kathy’s opinion, should have warranted an apology, an explanation that nothing was meant by it, or a phone call. It is a potentially career-ending issue that should not be taken lightly.

“When I read that response, I was like, we got a big problem here,” Kathy said. “Heard and understood? That, to me, means okay, my kid talks to me, you’re going to move on to the next kid, which is what he did.”

But when Kathy brought her claims to the school, she claims Berger immediately began to downplay the situation.

According to a November 27 recorded conversation between Berger and Kathy, Berger tried to draw a line between what constituted illegal behavior and what was merely “inappropriate,” questioning whether Kathy would object to a teacher hugging kids – which she did not. Kathy indicates that it wasn’t necessarily the tickling per se, but rather where on her body Ricciardi allegedly tickled Amy and how frequently.

“I’m not coming from the school of thought that says I don’t think we should touch children,” Kathy said. “Does this include a hug? Absolutely.”

“But when we get into first grade, and my daughter is six turning seven and we’re teaching her body autonomy, and the concept of consent, and that strangers shouldn’t be touching your body, I don’t think that frequent tickling from a male educator is acceptable,” Kathy said. “Tickling in the way we’re being told that sometimes it’s nice and sometimes it hurts and that she’s expressed that she doesn’t like it, that becomes concerning. This isn’t just a hug.”

“We have to get a sense whether this is a reportable situation,” Berger said, adding that Amy should feel safe to come to school. “Putting aside the reporting question, do I think it should continue? The answer is no. Will it continue? Is a clear no.”

“We all take our responsibilities seriously and because it’s a serious responsibility that we have to go through proper steps and ask the right questions,” Berger continued. 

The conversation was friendly and reasonable, with Kathy saying she didn’t necessarily want a report made to DCF because she didn’t want Amy to go through the trauma of the interview process, but was uncomfortable sending Amy back to school with Ricciardi as the teacher.

After concluding their initial investigation on December 2 and making the anonymous report to DCF, Solomon Schechter and Berger started to encourage Kathy to return her daughter to class. Kathy balked at the idea and sent an email the following day to Berger, trying to understand the “logistics of [Amy’s] return to school to help prepare her.”

“We do NOT wish to cause any issue with Schechter and simply would like to ensure the comfort and safety of my children while they are receiving their education at Schechter,” Kathy wrote. “I want to impress upon you that I respect and understand that your hands are tied regarding specific details. Would it make it easier for whoever is making decisions about how to answer me to contact me directly?”

“I appreciate your willingness to speak to someone else who might be calling the shots, but there remains only one decision-maker: me,” Berger wrote. “Your daughters are welcome to return to the school; we would love to see them back soon. I can assure you – and you can assure [Amy] that there will be no more tickling. I am hopeful that with this assurance, she will feel excited about returning. She would continue seeing her regular teachers, which include… and Mr. R.”

Two weeks later, Ricciardi was placed on leave again following another incident in which Ricciardi was observed touching the waistline area of a student after he’d been warned against tickling and touching. 

This time he would not return and was arrested a few weeks later.

Amy had been out of school for an extended period at this point. Berger was encouraging Kathy to return Amy to school and, according to a December 4 email, Kathy requested arrangements to reduce Ricciardi’s time with Amy and ensure they were never alone together, but the relationship between Kathy and the school was beginning to fray.

“I don’t believe that [Amy] and Nick were ever alone together, and there would be no reason for that to happen – so it’s easy for us to commit to that not happening in the future,” Berger emailed the following day. “I really believe that there should be no problem with her simply returning to school, with the knowledge that there won’t be any more tickling. I hope this sounds good, and we see her back in school soon.”

Behind the scenes, however, Berger kept trying to push a “restorative justice” meeting between Amy and Ricciardi. According to Kathy, this would have been a one-on-one meeting with Ricciardi and Amy. Berger did not answer questions on what a restorative justice meeting would entail. 

At a state of the school meeting in December, Berger gave a slideshow presentation. It contained a slide that said, “The restorative justice framework will make our school community feel safe, inclusive, and supportive for all. Conflicts can be opportunities for learning and connection instead of sources of division. Together, we will build a positive and resilient community.”

Kathy didn’t see things the same way. “Are you out of your mind?” Kathy said to Inside Investigator. “Putting a six-year-old in the room with her abuser is fear and intimidation. That’s not restorative justice.”

According to emails, Kathy claims she spoke to two child psychologists and multiple doctors who all said that Ricciardi’s behavior was inappropriate and that making Amy meet with Ricciardi would be detrimental. Amy herself said she did not want to see Ricciardi.

That same day, Kathy’s friend, whose son also goes to Solomon Schechter, reportedly saw Ricciardi tickle another student, and reports from other parents about alleged tickling and concerning contact began to make their way to both Kathy and the school over the next few days. 

“The dramatic shift in [Amy’s] personality and ability to function (sleep on her own/extremely on edge) have been dismissed by you, and you have shown little remorse for the events that have transpired. You have preached restorative justice but [Amy] (our family) is yet to get an apology for these events. I believe the administrative handling of these serious accusations has fallen short… We entrusted our children to the school to keep them safe. We feel strongly that a serious lapse occurred,” Kathy wrote in her December 13 email.

“I have been trying to work with you so that she can feel comfortable returning,” Berger wrote back. “The fact that we haven’t been able to do so yet is unfortunate – but it’s not because I lack sympathy. I also apologize if it felt to you like I was preaching about restorative justice. My intention wasn’t to preach. I was suggesting it as a possible way to help [Amy] feel comfortable at school – because, again, that is my goal as well as yours.”

When Ricciardi was placed on leave on December 17 following another report to school officials of tickling, Sarah Montag, director of teaching and learning, sent an email to parents initially telling them Ricciardi would be on leave and then the following day telling them that, “Mr. R is spending time with his family and new baby.” 

Montag then reached out to Kathy to see if Amy would be returning to school now that Ricciardi wasn’t there. By that time, however, Kathy was already looking for new schools.

During November and December deliberations between Kathy and Berger, Nancy spoke with her daughter and found out Ricciardi had allegedly tickled her, as well. Nancy’s daughter, Brittany, thought the tickling was fun, but Nancy reached out to Montag on December 5 for a conversation, indicated that she didn’t think it was appropriate and wanted it to stop.

“If it wouldn’t be appropriate for a male teacher to be tickling a female student when she’s a teenager, I don’t think it’s appropriate to tickle my prepubescent child,” Nancy said to Inside Investigator.

Following Ricciardi’s arrest, when the school asserted that only two families had come forward, Nancy shared her misgivings about the school’s statement in the parent group chat, stating she was aware of other families who shared concerns with the school, and was immediately shut down by Berger.

“[Nancy] wrote in the Anafim (the first and second grade class) What’sApp that she is personally aware of other families who spoke with me about what was happening in the classroom – and the implication behind her assertion seems to be that Schechter is hiding something,” Berger wrote in the January 26 email. “I am extremely disappointed at this call for a private What’sApp to air grievances. We’ve tried to be as transparent and open as possible – including offering an open forum last Monday morning so that questions and concerns could be addressed in a productive way.”

“I was like, it’s not two, it’s four,” Nancy said to Inside Investigator. “Immediately, I was met with – ‘we shouldn’t be gossiping,’ ‘this goes against our values,’ just immediately trying to gaslight and discredit me. I fought back because I can prove it. These things are documented.”

“Multiple members of the board came to me, saying keep it with [Berger], keep it with him, go through the school,” Nancy said. “I know there wasn’t just two families. I know who came to them. I know I came to them. You’re not pulling the wool over anyone’s eyes.”

Nancy’s statement is backed up by the West Hartford arrest warrant, which mentions the second incident that led to Ricciardi being placed on leave December 17. She is also supported by the DCF report, which discusses the tickling of another child as witnessed by a fellow student who was interviewed for the report; this incident occurred on December 10, well after Ricciardi had returned to the classroom with a warning not to tickle the students, according to the DCF report. When accounting for Nancy’s own concerns, there is documentation indicating four children were tickled as recounted by witnesses and those directly involved.

Nancy believes some parents were scared to come forward, or to press the issue once they did. Solomon Schechter is a private school that costs over $20,000 to attend. Those without means can attend on scholarship, but Nancy says that gives the school leverage, leaving those parents fearful they will have their funding revoked.

Nancy says that following the group chat issue and a meeting attended largely by supporters of the school in which she felt ganged up on for her criticism, she began to inquire about pulling her daughter out of the school.

Nancy, however, had already paid for her daughter to be in a school play, an extracurricular activity that Brittany had been rehearsing for months, and was looking forward to. When Nancy asked if Brittany could still participate in the play she had paid for if she withdrew Brittany from the school, the answer was no.

“At that point, I was like, we’re going to stick it out so she can finish the show,” Nancy said. “The show closed yesterday. Today is my kid’s last day in the school, which is why I’m talking to you today. I pulled them. They’re starting in the public school tomorrow. We’re out.”

Solomon Schechter Day School of Greater Hartford is one of many “Solomon Schechter” schools in the country. These schools do not have a unified administration, but they are all affiliated with the Conservative Judaism Movement. There are three primary Jewish religious movements in the United States: Orthodox, Reform and Conservative. They each have their own Rabbinical Assembly or Rabbinical Union, and affiliated seminaries. 

The Conservative Movement, which is the youngest of the three, was once the largest branch of Judaism in the country. It has since been surpassed by Reform Judaism, the most liberal of the three movements, and is now losing members, according to a 2021 Pew Research poll.

Many Conservative Jewish schools across the country have closed in recent years, or changed religious movements. The first Solomon Schechter school opened in Queens, New York, in 1956, when the movement was still growing. At the beginning of this year, it announced that it was switching affiliations to the Orthodox movement. Schechter Manhattan, which was one of the most prominent Conservative day schools, closed and merged with a Reform school in 2023.

Solomon Schechter Day School of Greater Hartford is bucking that trend. The school has been steadily growing in the last few years. In the 2018-19 school year, there were 100 students enrolled at the start of the year, according to the presentation that Berger gave at the State of the School meeting. This year, there were 147 students enrolled at the start of the academic year. Berger said that he expected next year’s enrollment to be around 145-148 students, and that there would be growth in the future. 

In the 2023-2024 school year, almost half of Solomon Schechter’s revenue came from tuition, and around one third came from donors, according to Berger’s presentation. He also said, while the school is less dependent on donations than it has been in the past, it still relies too heavily on them.

“If you look at healthy Jewish day schools, we’re still not there yet,” Berger said at the meeting. “We still need to raise the money, but we also do need to keep on making sure that tuition dollars continue to cover a greater portion of the actual cost of educating a child.”

That cost, according to Berger, is around $23,000 per child. And apparently it is getting more expensive, because tuition is increasing. The rates that had been shared with Nancy for next year’s tuition show that the costs vary from $21,500 for kindergarten students to $29,300 for students in fifth through eighth grade.

The greater Solomon Schechter school network, like all school systems, has not been immune to issues between students and teachers. In 2021, the Times of Israel published an exposé, detailing allegations that Mike Hirsch, a senior staff member at both Solomon Schechter Long Island and United Synagogue Youth had engaged in a coverup of sexual abuse by a senior official at USY.

Hirsch was immediately suspended from both jobs, but the Times of Israel later revealed that head of the Solomon Schechter Long Island school Scott Sokol had secretly kept Hirsch employed. Sokol resigned after the story came out.

Closer to home, another teacher at a private Jewish day school was arrested in July of 2024, and Kathy points to the New England Jewish Academy as an example of how such matters should be handled. According to reports and an email from the school, Roger Katz, a teacher at the Jewish Academy, was observed by staff having “close contact” with a student during a school assembly in the spring of 2024. 

“The school was made aware at that time that there were concerns about potential inappropriate conduct by this employee, and consistent with school protocols, the school immediately reported the concerns to the authorities and removed him from campus pending further investigation,” Head of School Esther Eisenman wrote in a July email. “I know allegations of this nature within our community, especially involving someone whom we trusted with our children, are shocking and difficult to process. I want to assure you, as parents, that we take any and all allegations of this nature very seriously.”

It is important to bear in mind that Ricciardi has not been convicted of anything. Although parents like Kathy and others at Solomon Schechter were clearly uncomfortable with the tickling and felt it was inappropriate, many of the teachers indicated – in official interviews, anyway – that they believed the tickling was innocent. Indeed, DCF closed their case on Ricciardi and Solomon Schechter as “unsubstantiated.” 

According to the DCF report, the tickling did not occur on any “intimate parts,” was not done in secret, and some children expressed that they liked it. They were also unable to substantiate that the incidents “had an adverse impact” on Amy, claiming there are other family stressors that could be impacting her, “including health conditions.”

“The allegations of physical neglect will also not be substantiated as tickling a 6-year- old on the stomach does not demonstrate a serious regard for the child’s physical wellbeing,” the DCF reports states. “Amy never suffered any physical injuries. Tickling a child at school may cross professional boundaries but does not rise to the level of sexual abuse, physical neglect, or emotional neglect.”

Ricciardi has pleaded not guilty to the charges related to his West Hartford arrest; there is no plea yet stemming from the Windsor arrest. 

Kathy registered her frustration and anger with DCF for closing their case. In an email back and forth, DCF spokesman Ken Mysogland indicated the department reviewed the investigation and they all came to the same conclusion “that tickling a child in the manner that it was reported to us, does not constitute child abuse or neglect according to our state statutes.”

“At times, the outcomes of our independent investigation may differ from law enforcement and law enforcement’s independent investigation may be different than the Departments,” Mysogland wrote.

Kathy also filed a failure to report complaint against Solomon Schechter School with the Connecticut Department of Criminal Justice (DCJ), arguing that the way Solomon Schechter framed their anonymous call to DCF – reportedly asking whether tickling was a reportable offense – was an effort to sweep everything under the rug.

“Rabbi Berger made a conscious and deliberate decision to try and ignore the situation in an effort to avoid negative publicity for the private school, which could have financial and enrollment implications,” Kathy wrote to the CT DCJ. “In his position as head of the school, he should’ve reacted immediately and given full information to DCF so that a proper investigation could’ve been conducted.”

Berger and Solomon Schechter offered little when Inside Investigator reached out with a series of questions – offering only an email they sent to parents on January 19 following Ricciardi’s arrest, assuring parents that they would conduct proper background checks and to reach out to the school with any further concerns.

“To the best of our knowledge, tickling on the student’s abdomen was the full extent of the reported behavior,” the email from Berger and Board Chair Riva Lewinter said. “We have no knowledge or evidence of anything beyond that. Since mid-December, the teacher has not returned to campus, and he is no longer employed by the school.”

During the same State of the School meeting in which Berger touted the values of restorative justice, he also said that the “biggest challenge this year” was a “personnel-slash-child welfare concern,” referencing Ricciardi. 

He went on to say that parents “don’t think twice about what happened earlier in the year, from what we can tell,” and he thinks the school is “in a good place.” He also said that the school contacted an organization called Sacred Spaces for guidance. Sacred Spaces is an organization that offers trainings, proposed policies and consultations to prevent “institutional abuse” in Jewish communities. Among their many offerings is a training on how to address sexual abuse in children’s programs. Berger did not elaborate on what the nature or extent of the school’s contact with Sacred Spaces. 

How this situation played out at Solomon Schechter, however, mirrors what allegedly happened at the St. Gabriel School in Windsor that resulted in Ricciardi’s second arrest, according to the mother of a seven-year-old girl, who described her daughter’s visceral reaction upon seeing Ricciardi while dropping her daughter off at school.

The mother – who we will call Sharon – says her daughter described Ricciardi “pretending to be a snake,” and using his fingers as fangs to “bite” her about the chest and shoulder area; there was also “tickling” and “rough housing,” according to the police report. When Sharon took her concerns to other teachers, however, she says they were dismissed, which relieved her at first.

According to Sharon, however, Ricciardi’s conduct continued even after her daughter complained to other teachers. “That really made me upset, because that was me telling my daughter to inform an adult if she felt unsafe again,” Sharon said to Inside Investigator.

Sharon says she then had a meeting with the principal, after which she heard nothing from the school, and then eventually reached out to the priest, who took months to respond and said he would have a conversation with the principal. Again, hearing nothing, she went to the superintendent, which resulted in a call to DCF in April of 2024.

It took a long time, but come the new school year, both Ricciardi and the principal were no longer employed by St. Gabriel; Ricciardi had moved on to Solomon Schechter. 

“I got what I wanted. He wouldn’t be in a classroom with my daughter,” Sharon said.

When Ricciardi was arrested by West Hartford police in January of 2025, Sharon saw that the police were looking for anyone else with information to come forward and reached out. St. Gabriel’s never put out a public statement but indicated that Ricciardi remained with the school through the end of the academic year, in June of 2024.

“This whole thing is just a whole bunch of negligence, people passing the buck and not taking accountability for their actions,” said Sharon, who is now acquainted with Kathy through their shared stories. “It’s really frustrating, and unfortunately my child had to be a part of that.”

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