Motion To Dismiss Ortolani Suit Denied

BOSTON – A motion to dismiss a case brought against the Community of Jesus and two nonprofits by a former Community member last summer has been denied in U.S. District Court.

In his June 26 decision, Judge Leo T. Sorokin denied the motion from the Community, Arts Empowering Life, Inc. and Performing Arts Building Foundation, Inc. on all counts, including those addressing allegations of child labor and trafficking violations under the federal Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act and Massachusetts state law.

Oliver Ortolani, a former Community member, filed suit against the three defendants in U.S. District Court in July 2025. Ortolani alleged that he and other children in the community were forced to perform unpaid labor to help build the Community’s performing arts center in Brewster. Specifically, Ortolani alleged that children, including himself and his siblings, worked “nine to 16 hours a day without proper safety gear, training or breaks,” and that child workers were “assaulted” or “shunned by the Community” if they complained or showed “even mild frustration with the harsh regime.”

The suit also alleged that children were kept out of school under the pretense that work on the building constituted “educational coursework,” and that child workers were hidden from government officials who came to inspect the project worksite. 

In December, the defendants filed a motion to dismiss the suit in U.S. District Court, arguing that the defendants are “conclusorily” lumped together and treated as “alter egos” of one another. The motion also claims that there is no evidence to show that the defendants had any knowledge of “forced labor” or any other form of “misconduct” alleged by Ortolani.

The decision came days after a June 18 hearing of arguments on the defendants’ motion.

Sorokin in his decision said that while Ortolani’s suit is “light on factual details,” there is nothing prohibiting “group pleading, especially where, as here, the plaintiff alleges that multiple defendants engaged in joint conduct in violation of the law.”

“More specifically, the complaint alleges that ‘AEL and PAB(F) were responsible for obtaining the land and loan for the (performing arts) building and overseeing much of the project,’ whereas the Community Leadership ‘was largely responsible for providing the person power for the project,’” Sorokin’s decision reads.

Sorokin also upheld Ortolani’s claim that he and other children were subject to forced labor in violation of the TVPRA. He noted the complaint’s allegation that children were kept contained within the project work area “from early morning to late night,” and that there were psychological and/or physical punishments that came with resisting participating in the work program. Sorokin also noted that Ortolani, according to his suit, watched his brother experience “physical abuse and a six-month-long period of social ostracization after angering an adult at the worksite.”

Those experiences meet the standard of “serious harm,” which Sorokin said needs to be met to claim violations under the TVPRA. He said Ortolani’s claim is also “reasonable” given his upbringing in the Community, “which demands strict obedience to its rules and discourages individualistic thinking,” and his limited exposure to the world beyond the Community.

“In light of these circumstances, it is plausible that any reasonable child in Ortolani’s position would have continued to perform labor for Defendants in order to avoid the physical, social, and psychological punishments levied against anyone who resisted,” he wrote.

Sorokin also said Ortolani successfully established that the defendants knowingly allowed for the unpaid child labor. He said it is “plausible” that this was known given that the defendants ran the construction project.

“Not to mention, the construction site was largely staffed by members of the Community, whom the Community Leadership strictly monitored and controlled at all times,” Sorokin wrote.

Sorokin also found that Ortolani and other children in the work program were coerced into taking part in the alleged work. 

“While Defendants frame the construction project as a ‘voluntary’ program, the fact that all boys of a certain age (9 to 16) were required to participate — coupled with the complaint’s other allegations about the high degree of obedience demanded by Community Leadership — colors the recruitment with a coercive hue.”

Ortolani’s parents, Ellen and David Ortolani, signed waivers allegedly allowing Oliver and his siblings’ participation in the work program. But Sorokin in his decision said that the parents were “misled” about the nature of the program. He noted that the waiver omitted details such as the number of hours to be worked per day and the “actual conditions and practices of the work program.”

“In denying the motion to dismiss Mr. Ortolani’s complaint right at the threshold, the Court simply held that the bare pleadings of Mr. Ortolani’s complaint satisfied the minimum pleading requirements necessary to avoid dismissal at the initial stage of the proceedings,” Jeffrey Robbins, the attorney representing the Community and the nonprofits, said in an email June 30.

Robbins said his clients do not intend to appeal the decision, but instead intend “to get immediately to the business of putting Mr. Ortolani and his parents, among others, under oath.”

“The defendants expect this process to demonstrate that Mr. Ortolani’s allegations that he was ‘trafficked’ are not merely ridiculous, but outrageous and that, on the contrary, his parents repeatedly asked that Oliver Ortolani and their two other sons be permitted to participate in the very programs at the site of the Performing Arts Center into which Mr. Ortolani claims the defendants ‘trafficked’ him into participating,” he said.

Robbins also noted that Ortolani’s siblings have not brought suit against the defendants, which he said is more evidence that the suit is “meritless.”