Conductor Benjamin Zander, former New England Conservatory teacher, apologizes for hiring sex offender as school videographer

By Michael Rezendes, Globe Staff

Benjamin Zander, the world renowned conductor recently fired by the New England Conservatory, has apologized for knowingly hiring a registered sex offender as a videographer for the school’s Youth Philharmonic Orchestra.

In a statement posted on his website today, Zander said that he supported convicted sex offender Peter E. Benjamin during his sentencing, in 1993, and retained him on a part time basis after his release from prison to videotape school events without knowing the specific charges against him.

“This was a grave oversight,” Zander said.

In addition, the 72-year-old Zander has taken responsibility for engaging Benjamin without disclosing to school officials either Peter Benjamin’s conviction or subsequent imprisonment.

“I accept that it was not for me to make the decision that it was safe to do so,” Zander said. “For all the upset and anguish my actions have thereby caused in the NEC community and beyond, I profoundly apologize.”

Last week, Zander told the Globe that he had done nothing wrong by hiring Peter Benjamin to videotape performances by the Conservatory’s Youth Philharmonic Orchestra and a class he teaches at the Walnut Hill School for the Arts, a boarding school in Natick.

“It’s a tragedy, an absolute tragedy that I’ve been fired for an absolute nothing,” Zander said, in a brief interview. “He’s done nothing for 20 years,” he added. “He’s been blameless for 20 years.”

In addition, Carol Goodman, a New York employment attorney retained by Zander, last Thursday criticized conservatory officials for cutting the school’s ties to Zander after he had spent more than four decades as a marquee instructor.

Yesterday, Goodman said Zander made his statement to the Globe last week immediately following his termination by the conservatory and ‘‘did not know of the gravity of the offenses against Peter Benjamin at that time.”

But she also said school officials need not have fired Zander.

“I do not agree that dismissal was the right way or the only way to deal with the situation after 45 years of good will,” she said. “But the NEC has made the decision and Ben Zander is living with it.”

Karen Schwartzman, a consultant and spokeswoman for the conservatory, declined to comment.

Last week, the Globe disclosed that Zander was fired after school officials were notified that Peter Benjamin, 68, is a registered Level 2 sex offender, meaning that state officials have determined that he poses a moderate risk of re-offending.

In 1994, Peter Benjamin was sentenced to five years in state prison after pleading guilty to charges of rape and sexual abuse. The charges were based in part on allegations that he secretly videotaped himself having sex with three male teens, one of whom was abused by Peter Benjamin during a two-year period beginning in 1990, when the boy was 13.

Evidence seized from Peter Benjamin’s home, then in Wayland, included videotapes of the three teens, along with “a box of photographs containing hundreds of photographs of numerous naked boys approximately age 8 to 15 ... performing sexual acts upon one another,” according to prosecutors.

Peter Benjamin, in a Globe interview last Thursday, said he has rehabilitated himself and accused conservatory officials of overreacting by firing Zander and by ending his contract work as a videographer while barring him from the school campus and school events.

“I’ve done everything right,” Peter Benjamin said. “I deserve a break here.”