In a breaking report from WMUR, Maggie Hassan admits that she “sensed something was wrong” with Richard Schubart’s swift departure from Phillips Exeter Academy, but she is defending her decision to place him on her 2012 campaign steering committee.
Richard Schubart was a Phillips Exeter Academy faculty member who was forced to resign and move out of campus housing after a victim of his admitted sexual misconduct came forward to the school. Hassan’s husband was the principal of the academy during this time period.
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Hassan defends placing former barred academy professor on 2012 campaign steering committee
WMUR
Gov. Maggie Hassan on Friday defended her judgment in placing on a 2012 gubernatorial campaign steering committee a former Phillips Exeter Academy faculty member who was forced to resign after admitting to two decades-old cases of sexual misconduct.
Hassan also said she did not know enough detail about the case to turn away small campaign contributions from former instructor Richard Schubart, who in late 2011 was required by the school to retire and remove himself from campus housing after the first of two victims of his admitted sexual misconduct in the 1970s and 1980s came forward to academy officials.
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Hassan’s husband, First Gentleman Tom Hassan, was the principal of the prestigious academy from September 2009 to July 2015. He was succeeded in September 2015 by Lisa MacFarlane, who, in a letter to the academy community this week, wrote that the response of school officials when the accusations were brought forward was “insufficient.” She did not name her predecessor in the letter or a statement issued on Thursday.
Hassan, in a one-on-one interview early Friday with WMUR reporter Ray Brewer, said, “I have thousands of supporters and lots of lists of steering committees, and while I sensed something was wrong because of the teacher’s abrupt departure, from the school, and abrupt retirement, I didn’t know and I didn’t have information that I could pass on that would have allowed us to remove him.”
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