BELCHERTOWN — A Mount Holyoke College student who alleged that she was sexually assaulted by Sean Mulveyhill, a college employee who was sentenced in the Phoebe Prince case in South Hadley in 2011, was granted an extended harassment prevention order against Mulveyhill on Friday.
The order was extended for an additional year after a two-day hearing in March and an additional period for Associate Justice Bruce S. Melikian, who oversaw the hearing, to review requests for findings.
During the March hearing, the alleged victim, a junior at Mount Holyoke College, testified that Mulveyhill raped her at his home on Feb. 24 after she drove him home from his job. The student said she had met Mulveyhill through his job at the college, where he worked at the dining hall and a campus pub.
The Gazette does not typically identify alleged victims of sexual assault.
Mulveyhill, who has not been criminally charged in the case, declined to testify at the earlier hearing, invoking his Fifth Amendment rights. The alleged victim’s former roommate and Mulveyhill’s father were also questioned as witnesses.
Mulveyhill’s lawyer, Michelle Cruz of Chicopee, did not respond to a request for comment.
Boston lawyer Vince DeMore, who represented the alleged victim, said Friday that while it is “obviously disappointing we have to be here in the first place,” he appreciated the court’s compassion in handling the case.
Following the student’s allegations against Mulveyhill, Mount Holyoke College received criticism for hiring an employee with Mulveyhill’s criminal history.
In 2011, Mulveyhill, now 26, pleaded guilty to criminal harassment charges after the suicide of Prince, who was a 15-year-old South Hadley High School freshman at the time of her death in 2010. Prince had been severely bullied by her classmates, including Mulveyhill.
Mulveyhill also faced charges of statutory rape, violation of civil rights with bodily injury, and disturbance of a school assembly in the Phoebe Prince case, but these charges were dropped. He was sentenced to one year of probation.
After the recent accusations against Mulveyhill, Mount Holyoke President Sonya Stephens announced on March 15 that the college is forming a Hiring Practice Task Force to provide “for the safety and well-being of our community.”
In the email announcement addressed to the Mount Holyoke community, Stephens wrote that the college conducted a standard background check on the accused employee, which “did not raise any concerns.”
Jacquelyn Voghel can be reached at jvoghel@gazettenet.com.