A former private school teacher, who was nicknamed “Mr. Wonderful,” has been charged with three counts of rape involving two of his former students.Matthew Rutledge, 64, walked into Berkshire Superior Court in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, on Wednesday for his arraignment after Melissa Fares, 33, and Hilary Simon, 39, accused their teacher of abusing them when they were students at Miss Hall’s School. The abuse allegedly happened between 2000 and 2010. He pleaded not guilty.The allegations include claims Rutledge groomed and repeatedly abused students, according to statements released by the Berkshire District Attorney’s Office.”For a long time, I was living inside trauma without fully understanding it,” Fares said in a statement shared by the Berkshire District Attorney’s Office. “It was over the last several years that I began piecing together the truth of what happened to me: that Matt Rutledge had used me, abused me, and raped me. That I had been groomed and threatened into silence by a serial predator. That my youth wasn’t my youth at all.”ICE BOSTON ARRESTS GUATEMALAN NATIONAL CHARGED WITH CHILD RAPE WHO WAS RELEASED BACK INTO COMMUNITY BY COURTSimon said she was 15 years old when Rutledge first began “grooming” her, and that the abuse “continued for years” after she left campus.”I fought this privately for 20 years,” her statement read. “I have been fighting it publicly for two. Before any of this, I was just a normal person. A lawyer. A wife and a mother. A woman trying to build a life on top of…
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