A lawsuit was filed in Superior Court against the Solomon Schechter Day School in West Hartford by the family of a girl who was “tickled” by a former teacher who has since been arrested four times after parents at both Solomon Schechter and a previous private school raised concerns over his inappropriate touching of students.
Nicholas Ricciardi has been arrested four separate times, starting in January of 2025, after the plaintiff initially raised the red flag to Solomon Schechter school officials over Ricciardi’s alleged “tickling” of her six-year-old daughter who said she didn’t like the touching and that it hurt, and who had numerous health conditions that could have triggered a medical event through Ricciardi’s actions.
School officials, including Rabbi Jonathan Berger who is named in the lawsuit, tried to downplay the family’s concerns, encouraged the child to return Ricciardi’s classroom, tried to hold a “restorative justice meeting” between the six-year-old and the adult male teacher, and attempted to quash any parent conversations or concerns about the allegations against Ricciardi both before and after his initial arrest.
Concerns had been raised over Ricciardi’s behavior at his previous employer – St. Gabriel School in Windsor – and the lawsuit filed last week claims multiple counts of negligence by school officials, including not conducting a proper background check on Ricciardi and hiring someone “who had a history of inappropriate behavior with students.”
The other claims of negligence include failing to take sufficient steps to protect the child from Ricciardi; failing to ensure an environment free from abuse; failing to supervise Ricciardi “despite knowledge of inappropriate conduct;” failing to investigate the allegations properly enabling “additional abuse,” and suggesting Ricciardi have continued access to the child and other children “despite knowledge of inappropriate touching,” according to the lawsuit.
The family claims that as a result of the school’s inaction, the child’s health was endangered and she has suffered from “depression, emotional and mental trauma, loss of happiness, physical pain, fear of being touched, and separation anxiety, all of which are, or may be, permanent,” along with a loss of education as the child had to be pulled out of school for an extended period of time and relocated to a new school.
According to the complaint, the school “owed a duty of care to the parents of its students… to act reasonably in protecting students from foreseeable harm, to respond appropriately to credible reports of misconduct, report misconduct when it became known, and to provide a safe educational environment for children entrusted to its care.”
Ricciardi was arrested in January, April, June and July of 2025; the counts include felony risk of injury to a child and misdemeanor breach of peace. One of the arrests is for an incident dating back to December of 2023, prior to Ricciardi’s employment at Solomon Schechter. All of the charges are in pre-trial or awaiting disposition.
Although Solomon Schechter officials anonymously contacted the Department of Children and Families (DCF) regarding the concerns about Ricciardi’s behavior, DCF officials did not officially launch an investigation until they were contacted by a different school following a conversation with the plaintiff family. DCF found the allegations to be unsubstantiated. According to the DCF report, although the allegations may “cross professional boundaries,” they “did not rise to the level of sexual abuse, neglect or emotional abuse, or neglect.”
Although Ricciardi was warned by both school officials and DCF not to engage in touching the children in any way after being placed on administrative leave, he returned to the classroom, continued the behavior, and was placed on leave again. He was terminated following his arrest in January of 2025.
Officials at the Jewish day school – where tuition runs over $25,000 per year – have thus far remained quiet about the arrests, only offering public statements indicating that Ricciardi is no longer employed at the school.
Privately, however, in messages and emails to parents, school officials offered different excuses for Ricciardi’s absence from school, warned against “misinformation” as parents began to discuss the allegations of inappropriate behavior, downplayed the number of parents who had complained about the touching, and then attempted to paint school officials as having spear-headed the investigation into Ricciardi’s behavior and eventual removal from the school – actions that some parents feel were an attempt to “control the narrative,” according to previous interviews and reporting conducted by Inside Investigator.
The plaintiff family is also claiming negligence for their other three daughters who attended the school as well, claiming that because of the school’s negligence, they were deprived of education, religious community, emotional hardship and disruption during developmental years. The family is seeking monetary and punitive damages, along with any other relief that may be offered.
Reached for comment, Rabbi Berger could only say that “these allegations are unfounded.”
Requests for comment to the attorney representing the plaintiff family were not returned.
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