MOUNT KISCO, N.Y. - Civil lawsuits alleging sexual abuse by James “Jimmy” Collins, a 68-year-old now-incarcerated Bedford man, have been settled, the attorney for the plaintiffs has confirmed.
The terms of the settlements are in the process of being finalized and are “confidential,” said Saul E. Wolf of the law firm Manly, Stewart & Finaldi.
Other defendants named in the suits were the village/town of Mount Kisco, Camp Iroquois, and the Boys & Girls Club of Northern Westchester and, in one of the cases, the Chappaqua Central School District.
Halston Media reached out to village/town and club officials but as of noon Friday, Nov. 22 had not heard back from them.
The legal action, brought under the New York Child Victims Act (CVA), was first filed in 2020 by Gregory Ardanowski, Scott Roth, and two other unnamed accusers. It was amended the following year to include 13 more plaintiffs. (One of the plaintiffs later dropped out.)
The CVA extended the statute of limitations and allowed survivors of childhood sexual assault more time to seek justice. (At this point, the window has been closed, Wolf said.)
The civil lawsuits accused Collins of sexually abusing underage males while a youth sports coach, camp counselor/coordinator, and recreation worker.
Plaintiffs alleged that the abuse took place at Memorial Pool in Mount Kisco’s Leonard Park, the Boys & Girls Club of Northern Westchester, Horace Greeley High School, and other places in the area in the 1970s and 1980s.
Roth was 14 and a youth counselor at Camp Iroquois in Leonard Park where Collins was a camp coordinator. Ardanowski was about 10 when he first met Collins, then a Little League baseball coach.
Collins was the owner of Jimmy's Bar, a Katonah tavern that's now been closed and torn down.
He now faces criminal charges in more recent incidents.
Collins was arrested on Nov. 7, 2023, by New Castle police when he showed up at the Chappaqua Library allegedly intending to meet with a 15-year-old boy with whom, authorities said, he’d had a sexual encounter there in July 2023.
The teen had told police about the previous tryst and allowed a detective to use his Snapchat account to arrange another meeting with Collins at the same place.
Collins was charged in that case with Criminal Sexual Act in the Third Degree, a Class E felony, relating to the July incident and freed on bail.
This past January, he was arrested by the FBI and charged with attempted enticement and sexual exploitation of a child.
That case involved explicit photos and videos authorities said had been sent to him by a 17-year-old boy in Illinois from September 2023 to the day he was arrested in Chappaqua.
The complaint said he had also communicated via phone with many other underage youths.
Collins is currently behind bars in a federal penitentiary.
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