Los Angeles Archdiocese Pays $8 Million to Teen Girl Abused and Kidnapped by Coach

By Liam Stack
Ne York Times
April 16, 2019

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/16/us/los-angeles-archdiocese-abuse-settlement.html

The Archdiocese of Los Angeles has paid $8 million to a teenager who was sexually abused and later kidnapped by a teacher at her Catholic high school in 2016, her lawyer said Tuesday.

The case has drawn attention to the problem of sex abuse at Catholic institutions that is committed by church employees who are not clergy members.

Dave Ring, a lawyer for the victim, and advocates for abuse survivors said the settlement was believed to be the largest amount paid to a single victim by the archdiocese, which has paid hundreds of millions of dollars to abuse survivors in recent years.

“I think the archdiocese has tended to settle cases for larger amounts when priests are involved,” Mr. Ring said on Tuesday. “In this particular case, the fact that it is a lay person and a coach and an athletic director, I think they are starting to realize that even lay people who may not hold a super important position in the church can still wreak havoc on a young person’s life, just as much as a priest can.”

Adrian M. Alarcon, a spokeswoman for the archdiocese, declined Tuesday to confirm the price of the settlement. But she said that a $660 million settlement reached in 2007 with 508 abuse victims included sizable awards to “certain individuals,” although the church did not decide how that money was distributed.

“The Archdiocese recognizes that there was serious harm done to the life of the victim-survivor,” the archdiocese said in a statement. “We hope that the settlement will allow her to heal and move forward with her education and lifetime goals. The Archdiocese apologizes for the impact that this caused in her life.”

The victim has not been publicly identified. She was 15 years old when she was sexually abused by Ivan Barajas, the athletic director and health teacher at San Gabriel Mission High School in San Gabriel, Calif., a parish school owned and operated by the archdiocese, according to court documents in a lawsuit filed in 2017. He was also her volleyball coach.

After kidnapping the girl and being captured by the police in Nevada, Mr. Barajas, 39, pleaded guilty to felony unlawful sex with a minor. He is serving a three-year sentence at Lovelock Correctional Center in Nevada and will then serve a second three-year sentence in California.

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Mr. Barajas began sexually abusing the girl in his office on school grounds in April 2016, Mr. Ring said. He also sexually abused her in the library, the faculty lounge and the gym, according to court documents. The victim is now 18 years old.

Ivan Barajas

According to court documents, in the months before Mr. Barajas began abusing the student, several people — including parents and faculty members — expressed their concern about him to school and archdiocese officials. But those officials declined to take meaningful action.

During the 2014-15 school year, a volleyball coach told administrators he was concerned about Mr. Barajas’s interactions with female students.

More people complained about Mr. Barajas during the 2015-16 school year, including a parent and a second volleyball coach who eventually shared his concerns with Msgr. Sal Pilato, the superintendent of high schools for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.

Mr. Ring said another parent sent school officials an anonymous letter expressing their concern about Mr. Barajas. The Los Angeles Times reported on Tuesday that one letter, sent to Monsignor Pilato, said, “He takes the ones he likes to the office.”

“Every act of abuse took place on campus in a really small school when the guy was already under suspicion and they already had complaints about him,” Mr. Ring said. “The archdiocese says it has all these policies and procedures and training in place from the priest abuse scandal. Well, where was it in this case?”

The school did not respond to messages seeking comment on Tuesday night.

During the course of the monthslong abuse, Mr. Barajas sent the teenage girl sexually charged text messages and pictures on his cellphone, which he used to record video of himself abusing her, according to court documents.

He kidnapped the girl after his wife discovered evidence of the abuse on his cellphone and confronted him about it in July 2016. He fled California and took the student to Nevada, where they spent five days sleeping in his car and hiding in secluded parks in and around Las Vegas.

They were found early one morning in Mr. Barajas’s car by police officers conducting a routine check of a parking lot in Henderson, Nev. Mr. Barajas was taken into custody and later convicted of sex crimes in Nevada and California.

The student returned home, where she received several months of inpatient therapy, Mr. Ring said.

Esther Miller, an abuse survivor who received part of the 2007 settlement from the archdiocese, said that for many Catholics, especially children at Catholic schools, the power wielded by a clergy member or an influential lay person could carry similar weight.

“There is a spotlight that needs to be shown on the situation of lay abusers because there is a lot of darkness there,” she said.

“Whether you’re in the church pew, in the sacristy or on the blacktop on the playground, it is the same vibe,” she added. “Whether it’s the principal, the athletic director or the janitor, it is the same thing. Whatever power a child can have is stolen from them.”