Alleged Priest Sexual Abuse Victim: “i’m Not Ashamed Anymore”

By David Olson
The Press-Enterprise
August 21, 2013

http://blog.pe.com/2013/08/21/sexual-abuse-bill-allowing-lawsuits-passes-assembly-committee/

David Nickell in 1980

As my colleague Jim Miller from the Press-Enterprise Sacramento bureau reported, the Assembly appropriations committee today approved a bill temporarily lifting the statute of limitations for some older cases of alleged sexual abuse.

The 11-3 vote came a week after the bill failed to muster enough votes in the same panel. Several legislators – including Assemblyman Eric Linder, a Corona Republican – who had abstained Aug. 14 voted in favor the measure today.

The California Catholic Conference, which represents the state’s dioceses, is lobbying against the bill, as are the YMCA and private athletic, school and university associations. They say the bill unfairly excludes public institutions – and victims abused by public-school teachers and other public employees – from its coverage.

Bishop Gerald Barnes, of the Roman Catholic Diocese of San Bernardino, is continuing to contact Inland legislators to urge them to vote against the bill, diocesan spokesman John Andrews said.

Barnes is asking parishes to inform congregants of the diocese’s opposition to the bill over the next two weekends, either through announcements from the pulpit or through inserts in church bulletins, Andrews said.

If the bill passes, it could decrease funding for Catholic schools and social services in the diocese, he said.

The diocese paid out about $16 million to alleged victims after a 2002 law created a similar one-year exception to the statute of limitations, Andrews said.

“If another one-year window opens, that could cost millions of dollars,” he said.

David Nickell, whose lawsuit against the Diocese of San Bernardino for alleged childhood sexual abuse in 1980 is on hold, said that with the heavy lobbying against the bill, he had expected it to fail.

The Riverside man said that when he found out it had passed, “it sucked the breath out of me, in a good way. I teared up a little.”

Nickell, 45, alleges that a now-deceased priest molested him when he was 11 and 12 years old.

Nickell’s suit likely would go forward if the bill is enacted into law.

Andrews declined to comment on the matter because it is still in litigation.

I wrote about Nickell yesterday in this story and this blog.

He told me today he had been “scared” to publicly reveal his abuse.

But after my stories and blog on him were published, he felt relieved.

“I’m not ashamed anymore,” Nickell said. “I don’t have to be ashamed of what happened to me. I don’t have to hide.”

Nickell said he has spent much of his adult life jumping from job to job – with periods of unemployment in between – and believes that at least some of that instability is the result of the alleged sexual abuse.

The lawsuit asks for compensatory damages from the diocese. Devin Storey, an attorney for Nickell, said that “diminished ability to earn is certainly a damage.”

Storey said damages also would be sought for the cost of Nickell’s psychological care and treatment and for the pain he has suffered as a result of his alleged abuse.

Nickell said if he were to receive money from the lawsuit, “I could provide a little better for my daughter.”

It would also provide him closure, he said.

“The church needs to get straight,” Nickell said. “They need to know they hurt people. They hurt me. My closure would be knowing they identified that I was wronged.”

Follow me on Twitter: @DavidOlson11