The Boston Globe reports that a respected special education school teacher at a Boston public school was placed on paid leave, following his arrest for a highly public sex act in South Station’s busy concourse on Patriots Day.
About 7:15 p.m. on April 20, witnesses alerted MBTA Transit officers that Thomas L. Gould, 37, was allegedly performing the act on a man at a table, said Lieutenant Detective Richard Sullivan of the Transit police.
The men appeared to be intoxicated and were visible to men, women, and children, he said. They were also being recorded by security cameras, he said.
“Officers estimated about 50 to 60 patrons within the general vicinity that — had they been looking in that direction or passing that direction — would have been clearly able to see,” Sullivan said.
“South Station is one of our highest-volume stations on the system,” he added later.
Officers separated the men and arrested Gould, Sullivan said. The other man was not immediately arrested, but will be summonsed to court, he said.
Gould, of Hull, was arraigned in Boston Municipal Court April 21 on charges of open and gross lewdness; lewd, wanton, and lascivious conduct; and disorderly conduct , according to Jake Wark, a spokesman for Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley.
A plea of not guilty was automatically entered on Gould’s behalf, and he was released on his own recognizance, Wark said. He was ordered to return to Boston Municipal Court for a pre-trial hearing on June 10.
Gould is a resource-room teacher at Grew Elementary School in Hyde Park, where he has taught students with learning disabilities since 2003, according to the School Department. His salary last year was $92,148.
Richard Weir, a Boston public school spokesman, said Gould was a well-regarded educator and he was not aware of any prior disciplinary action against him.
