Rey Buono discharged his duties while working in Malaysia and elsewhere conscientiously and has an unblemished record, his lawyer N Sivananthan said today.
Sivananthan said in a statement that Buono refuted all the allegations made against him carried in the media.
It was reported that Buono was named by the Milton Academy in Boston, Massachusettes, as having sexually assaulted 12 of his students while working at that performance arts school between 1973 and 1987.
Buono had been involved in Malaysian theatre productions and had also served as a lecturer at several institutions of higher learning.
Sivananthan said Buono did lecture at the Milton Academy and that he left in 1987.
Since then, Sivananthan said, Buono had lectured at various institutions in Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia for almost 30 years and “during that entire period there has not been any sexual misconduct allegations made against him”.
Sivananthan also said:
- Buono notes that the investigation and purported findings was by a private entity and notes that to date no criminal complaint has been filed against him;
- Buono also notes that the alleged incidents apparently occurred more than 30 years ago and there were no criminal complaints filed then and to the best of his knowledge, there has not been any filed to date;
- Buono is surprised that these allegations appear to have come up after a third party entity commenced investigations and not as a result of any criminal complaint by any purported victim;
- Buono notes that the various institutions that he has worked with in the last 30 years have been extremely gracious in their comments about him; and
- Buono affirms that during his employment tenure he has discharged his duties conscientiously and to the very best of his ability and he has an unblemished record.
Sivananthan said they were in the process of engaging lawyers in Boston to look into these allegations.
He said Buono was disappointed that “these unsubstantiated and unfounded allegations” had been splattered all over the social media despite the fact that no criminal complaint had been filed.
“My client is now in his 70’s and retired after a long and illustrious career in the performing arts and takes the view that he should not be vilified without any proper investigation and more importantly the fact remains that there has been no criminal complaint made against him during his tenure at Milton Academy and none in the last 30 years.”
Local theatre veterans, in fact, were shocked when news of the allegations surfaced. They said they had never heard of allegations of misconduct against him here.
Many of them remember him as a good teacher and being very professional in his work.