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Rey Buono pleaded guilty to two counts of child rape by force on Friday, Sept 30, from attacks that reportedly happened in the 1980s at the schools in Milton, NBC Boston reported. Buono agreed to a plea deal that requires him to serve five years of probation, register as a sex offender, wear a GPS ankle monitor, avoid all contact with his victims and anyone under 18, and hand over his passport.
One of his victims told the court that Buono stole his childhood and took years of his life.
"It has been more than 40 years since Rey Buono repeatedly raped me, and not a day goes by that some aspect ... of his behavior doesn't haunt me," they told the court, per Patriot Ledger. "It rocked me to the core because it made me question so much about my life. When he touched me that first time, he stole my childhood. ... He stole my voice. ... He shattered my ability to love and trust myself. I have spent years since then trying to reclaim what he stole from me."
Rey Buono worked as Milton Academy's drama instructor for most of the 1980s, the newspaper said. The school fired him after a student came forward and accused him of repeatedly sexually abusing him and giving him alcohol. Buono fled to Thailand before he faced any legal repercussions, Patriot Ledger reported. Authorities extradited him to Massachusetts in 2017, but most of the charges he would have faced were too old to take to trial, the newspaper said.
Milton Academy asked for an independent investigation in 2017 and found Buono likely abused at least a dozen students during his time at the school, the newspaper said.
He worked at the prestigious Saint David's School in Manhattan before he came to Massachusetts, the New York Post said. A man sued Buono in 2020 for allegedly sexually assaulting him when he was a student there. They settled that case out of court.
Several of Buono's victims spoke during the hearing on Friday. They discussed the years of pain, confusion, and hopelessness that followed the abuse, the Patriot Ledger reported.
"I have spent the majority of my life rewriting the connections in my brain, so I don't have to listen to the constant litany of negative voices, but they still creep in from time to time," one of the men said. "I blame him for that."
Buono will serve his probation in Maine, where he plans to live following the ruling, NBC Boston said.
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