The family of an Italian student who hanged himself at EF Academy has filed a new lawsuit against the Thornwood boarding school.
Mauro Mandia, the father of student Claudio Mandia, accused the school and two nurses of malpractice in a complaint filed on Feb. 13 in Westchester Supreme Court, based on information learned in litigating a previous complaint filed against the academy and school officials in 2022.
“EF Academy never took C.M. (Claudio) for a psychiatric evaluation and never told C.M.’s parents that he expressed suicidal thoughts or a plan to end his life,” the complaint states, “in direct defiance of the applicable standards of care.”
Had they done so, Claudio’s “premature death would have been avoided.”
“Our hearts remain with the Mandia family and all who knew and loved Claudio,” EF Academy spokesperson Adam Bickelman stated in an email.
“We have prioritized Claudio’s privacy and the privacy of his family by withholding our detailed version of events, despite the significant amount of false and inaccurate information shared in the public domain. Our staff cooperated fully with the Westchester County District Attorney’s investigation, where the DA ultimately found no cause of action.”
EF Academy bills itself as a global boarding school with students from more than 60 nations.
The new complaint accuses two nurses of wrongdoing.
Claudio, the heir apparent to the family’s frozen pizza export company in Battipaglia, Italy, near Naples, enrolled as a junior in the school’s International Baccalaureate program in 2020.
During Claudio’s first semester he witnessed an emotional breakdown by a student who had been expelled, and he was deeply affected by his classmate’s suicidal thoughts, according to the complaint. He sought treatment with the director of mental services.
His father, Mauro, and mother, Elisabetta Benesatto, were never told that their son was receiving counseling, the complaint states.
In March 2021, Claudio faced disciplinary charges and purportedly told an Italian literature teacher that he would commit suicide if dismissed from the academy.
A school nurse spoke with Claudio and observed him with friends in the cafeteria. He admitted saying that he wanted to end his life and said he was upset and lonely, the complaint states, but said he felt better and wanted to return to his friends.
The nurse allegedly concluded that Claudio was not a threat to himself but should be monitored.
According to the new complaint, the school violated its crisis protocol. Claudio should have been taken to Westchester Medical Center for a psychiatric evaluation.
Nearly a year later, he was in trouble for paying a classmate to prepare a math paper for him. The academy decided to expel him for plagiarism.
He was placed in solitary confinement for several days to await the arrival of his parents to take him home, the complaint states. His parents allegedly begged school officials to remove him from solitary confinement. His father asked why his son was being treated like a criminal and who was taking care of his mental sanity.
On Feb. 16, 2022, the academy allegedly gave him no food.
He was allowed to visit a group of friends that evening. Surveillance footage, according the complaint, shows three classmates expressing concerns about ligature marks on Claudio’s neck, indicating an attempted suicide. When they questioned him, he said he had fallen in the shower.
Two school employees who took Claudio back to his room allegedly paid no attention to the ligature marks.
The next day, Claudio’s sister, who also attended the academy, became concerned when she had not heard from him, the complaint states. She pleaded with the director of mental health services to check on him.
Late that morning, the mental health director found Claudio dead by hanging, suspended by a torn bed sheet from a steel railing on a bunkbed in the isolation room.
The suicide was “entirely foreseeable by EF Academy and its staff,” the complaint states, “and occurred as a direct and proximate result of their acts and omissions.”
The family is seeking unspecified compensatory and punitive damages.
Bickelman, the academy spokesperson, said proceedings in the original case have reinforced the school’s position that established escalation protocols and applicable standards of care were followed.
He called the new case duplicative and said it “seeks only to add misleading quotes taken out of context. The allegations contained in this additional complaint continue to be without merit.”
The family is represented by White Plains attorney Richard S. Vecchio and Bochetto & Lentz P.C., Boston.
