Former Bergen Catholic Students Who Claim Sex Abuse File for Shares of Settlement

By Stephanie Akin And Abbott Koloff
The Record
May 25, 2013

http://www.northjersey.com/news/Former_Bergen_Catholic_students_who_say_they_were_sexually_abused_file_claims_for_shares_of_165M_bankruptcy_settlement.html

At least 13 people who say they were sexually abused while attending Bergen Catholic High School years ago have filed claims in federal court to be part of a $16.5 million settlement agreement reached with the order that runs the school, an attorney said Friday.

The Christian Brothers of Ireland, an order that runs schools across North America, including Bergen Catholic, agreed to the settlement as part of a Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization in federal court. Officials with the order said they filed for bankruptcy two years ago because they were operating at a significant loss due to the legal costs related to the settlements of abuse cases. The settlement was made public on Thursday.

In response to the settlement, several people who said they have been abused by Catholic priests gathered outside a house in Elizabeth belonging to the brotherhood Friday morning. Among them was a Ramsey resident who said she was abused by a priest from the Christian Brothers order who taught at the high school she attended in New York state decades ago. The woman, who asked that her name not be published, is one of more than 400 people who have filed to be eligible to receive money from the settlement.

A federal judge in White Plains, N.Y., ordered that money be set aside in a trust for abuse victims, including those who never before made a claim.

J. Michael Reck, a Minnesota attorney, said he represents 92 people who have filed claims to receive money as part of the settlement, including 13 who attended Bergen Catholic, in Oradell. The precise amount of money to be paid to each of the alleged victims has not yet been determined. Those who have filed claims, Reck said, will have those claims examined in an independent evaluation to overseen by the court.

Bergen Catholic officials declined to comment Friday, referring questions to a firm handling public relations for the Christian Brothers order. The order acknowledged in a statement that it has agreed to pay $16.5 million to sexual abuse victims as part of a reorganization settlement. It also said it has agreed to the “continued enforcement of a comprehensive zero tolerance initiative that protects children and vulnerable adults.”

The statement said the order has been operating with an “an annual seven-figure deficit exacerbated by mounting legal costs involving lawsuits.” It said most of those lawsuits were filed in Seattle and St. John’s, Newfoundland, Canada.

The settlement was made after “intense negotiations” over the past three months with a committee representing victims, the order’s deputy provincial leader, Brother Kevin Griffith, said in a statement.

In Elizabeth, abuse victims stood across the street from a house owned by the Christian Brothers. They held up signs featuring photocopied pictures of priests they said had abused them and slogans like, “Sexual abuse of little girls and boys is soul murder.”

A 51-year-old mental health administrator who lives in Ramsey was among those who came to share their stories. She said she did not come forward until last year, when she received a letter from the court informing her of the settlement, and a high school friend convinced her to contact his attorney.

“I had to go back and try to tell him the whole story,” she said.

She said the abuse started in 1977, when she was a 15-year-old softball player, and continued until she was a 20-year-old college student. She said a priest who taught at her high school in New York State abused her hundreds of times in settings ranging from a school shower room to a tent on a Maine retreat.

After the abuse ended, she said, she struggled with alcohol abuse, emotional problems and attempted suicide several times.

She said she came forward Friday partly because she had learned her abuser, no longer a member of the brotherhood, might be teaching at a school in the Philippines. She has not been able to file civil claims against him because the statute of limitations has passed, she said.

“This man, he is what he is,” she said. “He’s evil. He’s a pedophile. He’s a sociopath. He’s not going to be stopped unless the law stops him.”

Robert Hoatson, a co-founder and president of Road To Recovery, Inc., a Livingston-based group that supports victims of sexual abuse, organized the event. He said he also was a victim of abuse by members of the Christian Brothers while he was a student at Essex Catholic High School in Newark.

Email: akin@northjersey.com and koloff@northjersey.com