A pair of brothers are suing the Gilman School for failing to protect them from a coach who they say sexually abused both of them during the 1990s.

The men, who sued Gilman anonymously in Baltimore City Circuit Court earlier this week, say they were groomed, plied with gifts and molested by Dr. Martin Meloy. A 2021 investigative report commissioned by the school concluded that Meloy had abused at least 13 students.

Meloy, who worked as a coach from 1983 to 1989 and as a middle school science teacher and coach from 1989 to 2009, died in 2015.

Gilman officials did not respond to an email seeking comment for this story. In the past, its headmaster, Henry P.A. Smyth, has acknowledged that the school could have done more in the past to address allegations of sexual abuse.

In 2008, two former students, not the plaintiffs in the newly filed suit, reported that Meloy had abused them in the 1990s. It wasn’t until another accuser emerged in 2019, though, that the school hired a company to investigate the scope of abuse at the elite prep school in North Baltimore.

“Gilman permitted a trusted teacher to prey on innocent students — a fact that it readily admits,” said Jeffrey Nusinov, the brothers’ attorney. “It now forces my clients to endure the added humiliation of a trial just to get a bit of justice. Most people would agree that my clients have suffered enough.”

The suit details how Meloy abused the boys, leading one to leave a sport he loved and in which he showed promise, and both to suffer ill effects on their lives even decades later.

“Meloy preyed on younger students, boys in the seventh, eighth, ninth and tenth grades,” the suit alleged. “He used his position of influence and authority to lure boys and to entrap them in his deviant schemes.”

According to the suit, Meloy began abusing the older of the brothers, “John Doe,” from 1990 to 1992, when he participated in “soccer, wrestling and baseball, regularly placing him in Meloy’s orbit and subject to his control and supervision.”

The student was coaxed into receiving massages at Meloy’s Baltimore County home and molested, according to the suit. The abuse ended in the summer after 10th grade, but John struggled through high school and remained “haunted” by the abuse, the suit said.

He graduated from college, became an executive at a Fortune 150 company, married and started a family, the suit said. However, news of Meloy’s death “revived long suppressed memories and renewed the trauma.” Now living in Virginia, the man began having manic episodes, he and his wife separated and he left his job, according to the suit.

In 1993, Meloy “moved on” to the younger brother, “James Doe,” the suit said, “an all-star athlete who made the varsity football team as a sophomore. He particularly excelled in baseball and those familiar with him believed that he showed real promise in the sport.”

Meloy also gave James gifts, rides to and from practices and used “the pretext” of giving him massages to “perpetrate his assaults,” the suit said. James abruptly quit baseball in 10th grade as a way of escape, according to the suit.

“He never discussed with anyone why he quit baseball, a sport which he loved and in which he excelled, but the sole reason was his need to get free of Meloy’s abuse,” the suit said.

“Like his brother, James has suffered extreme emotional trauma and distress, which have affected every aspect of his adult life,” the suit said. “His grades suffered and he lost interest in school.”

The man attended the Johns Hopkins University but didn’t complete his degree, the suit said. A Maryland resident, he has had “great difficulty with personal relationships,” according to the suit.

After the two other former students reported to Gilman in 2008 that Meloy had abused them in the 1990s, he was forced to resign, although Gilman characterized it as a retirement.

The school referred the 2008 accusations to the Baltimore County state’s attorney. But State’s Attorney Scott Shellenberger told The Baltimore Sun previously that he felt there was insufficient evidence to prosecute.

“Rather than address the abuse, Gilman swept it under the rug,” the suit said. “Gilman made no effort to investigate whether Meloy had subjected other Gilman students to sexual abuse.”

In 2019, another former student came forward with allegations about Meloy, leading the school to write a letter to its community saying it would pursue “a full understanding” of abuse at Gilman and hire a firm, T&M USA, to conduct an investigation.

The allegations in the brothers’ suit are consistent with what T&M reported. According to the report, Meloy would tell athletes that they looked tight or stiff at practice, and invite them to their home where he would ask them to undress and lie face down on a bed while he massaged them. Some said Meloy would ask to be massaged himself while naked, or would fondle them or take photographs of them, the report said.

The plaintiff referred to as John spoke to a T&M investigator after receiving assurances of confidentiality. However, the report contained enough information to make the brothers identifiable by former classmates and even their parents, none of whom they had told of the abuse, the suit said.

The suit alleges that Gilman was negligent in hiring and supervising Meloy, saying the school knew, or should have known, that Meloy took an “unusual interest” in the brothers and spent an “inordinate amount of time” with them. It also alleges an invasion of the brothers’ privacy by using personal information that could identify them in the T&M report that was distributed to the Gilman community.

In 2023, another former student filed suit against Gilman, alleging abuse by Meloy in the 1990s.

The Child Victims Act, passed by the General Assembly two years ago, removed the statute of limitations on allegations of childhood sexual abuse. But this year, with fears of how those cases could affect the state’s budget, legislators capped the amount of possible damages by more than half, starting June 1.

Gilman has contended with another more recent case of sexual abuse, with former teacher Christopher Bendann sentenced to 35 years in prison for sexually abusing a teenage student starting in 2017 and stalking him into adulthood.

Have a news tip? Contact Jean Marbella at jmarbella@baltsun.com, 410-332-6060, or @jeanmarbella.bsky.social.