Former teacher accused of rape dies
Trial was days from starting
A former Maynard High School teacher who was accused of raping a student at the school and at his home in Hudson, died last night after spending the day in court, according to the man's lawyer.
Joseph Magno, 66, died just days before a jury was to be impaneled to decide whether he was guilty of repeatedly raping a former student beginning in 2001, when the boy was 13 .
Today, a judge was to decide whether the testimony of 14 other former students, now grown men, who also said the 43-year veteran of the Maynard Public Schools sexually assaulted them, would be admissible.
Magno was indicted last January and pleaded not guilty to 18 counts of child rape and indecent assault and battery of a child. Magno, who was free on bail and confined to his Hudson home, was being monitored by an electronic ankle bracelet.
In court yesterday, his lawyer, Don DeMayo, requested that Magno be allowed to sit in the galley, instead of at the defendant's table because of problems with his legs. Judge Diane Kottmyer refused that motion.
Magno had been plagued with health problems since his arrest on Jan. 6, 2005. After being booked by Maynard Police, Magno, who stood 6-feet tall and weighed 260 pounds at the time of his arrest, was transported to Emerson Hospital in Concord.
"He had a lot of serious conditions," DeMayo said during a brief telephone interview last night. "I know his heart stopped, and they couldn't revive him."
DeMayo said Magno planned to make his scheduled appearance at Middlesex Superior Court today but did not say what his next step would be.
At his arraignment last January, Magno pleaded not guilty from his bed at Emerson Hospital. He was hospitalized, he said, for complications from having one kidney and heart problems.
Magno helped launch the high school radio station WAVM and was an adviser there before he was suspended without pay in February.
Prosecutors say the abuse in their case began in 2001, when the student was in eighth grade, and continued until the 2003-2004 school year.
Since the initial allegations, more than a dozen other men have contended that Magno abused them, prosecutor Michael Chinman told Middlesex Superior Court Judge Peter Lauriate at a previous hearing.
During his career, Magno doted on some students. He gave the 17-year-old he is accused of sexually abusing and other students Ford Mustang cars, court documents show.
