Teen Victim of Episcopal Priest

By Brian Dowling
Boston Herald
December 14, 2016

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/local_coverage/2016/12/da_teen_victim_of_episcopal_priest

A 75-year-old former Episcopal priest in Rhode Island was arrested and charged yesterday with assaulting a 15-year-old prep school student he took on trips to Boston more than 40 years ago, Suffolk prosecutors said.

Howard “Howdy” White was an associate chaplain at St. George’s School in Middletown, R.I., in 1973 when prosecutors say he took one of his academic advisees on two overnight trips to Boston and assaulted him. He faces five counts of assault and battery from the two trips.

“Whether as a child or as an adult, disclosing sexual abuse can be the most daunting experience in a person’s life,” Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley said in a statement. “Survivors everywhere should know that they can feel safe and supported coming to us, and that we place their well-being above all else as we investigate and prosecute the harm committed against them.”

As the student’s academic advisor, White helped him with his studies, took him out to dinner and invited him on the trips to Boston, prosecutors said.

Although the boy confronted White his sophomore year in an attempt to end the abuse, prosecutors say White threatened to “make (his) life difficult.”

After the boy reported White to school faculty in 1974, White admitted to school staff he sexually assaulted the boy, prosecutors said.

White appeared voluntarily in court yesterday and was ordered to have no contact with the victim, to have no unsupervised contact with minors, and to surrender his passport. White’s defense attorney and St. George’s School did not return requests for comment.