Walter Turnbull, the long-esteemed president of the Boys Choir of Harlem, was throwing himself a pity party.

He’d been asked to resign from the choir he founded more than 20 years ago and end his connection to the school that housed it — because he allowed a school counselor to continue working long after the man was banned from the school for molesting a male student.

“I handled it badly,” Turnbull admitted in a newspaper interview, but in the next breath he claimed that the counselor, Frank Jones, had betrayed his confidence. “The trust that I had was misplaced,” he said.

Turnbull is not the wronged party in this scandal. On the contrary, an investigation by the Department of Education suggests that he should get on the first train smoking and never come back. The Department of Education, which funds the choir academy, says it can no longer support the school as long as Turnbull and his brother Horace, the choir’s two top executives, and John King, the school’s principal, are working there. King was removed from the school last week.

The report paints the three men, along with Jones, as members of a clique that ran the school, exerted considerable control over the students, and were willing to wink at Jones’ sexual misconduct to protect the school’s reputation and their own.

According to the investigation, in 1998 Jones started abusing a 12-year-old boy on concert tours and at the choir’s mandatory summer music camp, where Jones served as chaperon. He pursued the boy, taking increased sexual liberties with him and giving him gifts. After two years the boy asked the leaders of a small chorus at the school to help him avoid Jones.

When Jones persisted, Horace Turnbull was informed about the sexual misconduct. But in a song and dance conducted by the Turnbull brothers, Horace took the boy to a meeting with Walter and Jones, where they left him alone with Jones, who proceeded to threaten the boy if he pursued the charge.

Horace Turnbull conducted a perfunctory investigation of the charges, which consisted of talking to the boy, talking to Jones and accepting Jones’ denial. In a later meeting with Walter Turnbull, who by now knew the details of the sexual abuse, the student told him he wanted Jones removed from the school. But Turnbull said he needed Jones. Turnbull subsequently barred the student from going on a long-planned choir trip to Japan, while Jones went along as chaperon.

During one reported conversation, Walter Turnbull fretted to one of the chorus leaders that the student “is going to destroy us.” The leader replied that Jones, not the student, was the problem.

After repeated attempts to get the Turnbulls to do something failed, the boy told his mother, who reported the abuse to the police. The Department of Education subsequently ordered that Jones be barred from the school. Yet he continued to visit the school over the next six months and was allowed to chaperon students on various choir trips. Jones was eventually arrested, convicted and sent to prison.

The scenario of reported abuse, followed by evasion, inaction and retaliation against the student, reminds me of the Catholic bishops who turned a blind eye to the reports of sexual abuse involving priests. In an appalling display of arrogance and self-absorption, the Turnbulls put their own reputations and that of the choir ahead of this student’s welfare.

The Turnbulls deserved to be fired. By protecting Jones, they betrayed all of the students they claimed to be helping and all of the people who believed the choir was doing wonderful things for children.

Sheryl McCarthy is a columnist for Newsday.