On Thursday, August 20, 2026, Phillips Andover Academy released a communication to “alumni” identifying for the first time its former medical director and convicted felon, Richard Keller, as a perpetrator of child sexual abuse. In doing so, the school finally corrected a 2012 statement issued by Phillips Andover after Keller was arrested on child pornography charges, claiming it “had no reason to believe that students were affected by Keller’s alleged crimes.”
Keller, who worked at Phillips Andover for approximately two decades, has a long history of sexualized misconduct at the school. In 1999, he was caught looking at pornography on a school computer. While Andover claimed publicly that Keller was looking at adult pornography, that remains unclear. In the child pornography matter captioned, United States v Keller, United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts, CA 12-10377, Keller admitted his lifelong depravity regarding child pornography. He stated:
My interest in child/young adult pornography began as a curiosity in my early teenage years, became habitual in my late teen years, and then became obsessive in my young adulthood, only to worsen with the advent of computers and the internet. I tried to break free from this addiction many, many times, only to return to it again with renewed fervor.
According to the Boston Globe, three years after Keller was caught viewing pornography on Phillips Andover’s school computer, “he was reprimanded again for showing students an ‘inappropriate cartoon.’” After yet additional transgressions, Keller’s contract was not renewed for the 2011-2012 school year.
According to one Keller survivor, a veteran of the war in Afghanistan, “When I was a child, Phillips Andover Academy placed me at the mercy of a sadistic pedophile. The school failed to uphold the most crucial of its duties … to maintain a safe environment for children.”
According to that survivor’s counsel, Kristin Knuuttila, Phillips Andover ignored bright red flags regarding Keller. It allowed Keller to have unfettered access to and unchaperoned appointments with students.” Co-counsel, Eric MacLeish, agrees. He states, “Even after Keller was arrested for possessing child pornography, some of which he received at his Phillips Andover residence, Phillips Andover chose to protect the school’s reputation over the students, claiming – without first conducting an investigation – that Keller did not harm students. This is just another example of recent reports of physicians abusing patients and is likely just the tip of the iceberg.” Says Knuuttila, “it’s about time Phillips Andover set the record straight.”
As for the survivor/veteran, he hopes “that knowledge of Richard Keller’s crimes during his tenure at the school is widely disseminated, so that other survivors know that they are not alone.”