A former private school teacher charged with aggravated child sexual assault is trying to avert a trial by negotiating a deal with prosecutors.
The defendant, Peter Hirzel, is accused of repeatedly sexually assaulting a teenage girl at his home in Pownal between August 2021 and January 2022.
Police said Hirzel, 60, met the girl while working at Pine Cobble School in Williamstown, Massachusetts, where he’d been her math teacher from grades six to eight. He worked there from 2018 until March 2021.
Hirzel has pleaded not guilty to the felony offense, which is punishable by 25 years to life in prison. In February, the Bennington Superior Court allowed him to be released from jail on a $100,000 bond and placed under house arrest while awaiting trial.
At a hearing on Friday, defense attorney David Silver said he and the prosecutor, Deputy State’s Attorney Alex Burke, are trying to resolve Hirzel’s case to avoid a trial.
“Mr. Burke and I are working cooperatively together to try to avoid putting the complainant and/or her family through the difficult process of depositions and trial,” Silver said. “We think that’s in everybody’s best interest.”
He said Burke will speak with the girl and her family about the potential resolution. Neither Silver nor the prosecution provided more details on it.
If the negotiations break down, Silver said, the case would be ready for trial around April of next year. The next status hearing on Hirzel’s case is scheduled for Feb. 10.
Meanwhile, Hirzel’s home detention has been reduced from 24 hours to 21 hours a day, according to court records. Since late July, he has been allowed out of the house from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. every day. His other conditions of release include not having contact with any underage female outside his family.
After he was charged, Pine Cobble School hired an outside lawyer to investigate Hirzel’s tenure at the private school. In August, its board of trustees told the school community that the investigation “found no evidence of sexual misconduct by Peter Hirzel prior to or during his employment at Pine Cobble.”
The board, in the email, also said the school conducted criminal record background checks on Hirzel in the process of hiring him.
Hirzel, a former architect and graphic designer, had been a teacher for around 17 years, his former wife told the court in a previous hearing. His employers included the Los Angeles Unified School District and New Roads School, a private K-12 school in Santa Monica, California.
Pine Cobble School, which opened in 1937, teaches students from age 3 through eighth grade. Its students come from western Massachusetts, southern Vermont and eastern New York, according to its website, with 148 students enrolled in the 2019-20 school year.
