Coach of N.J. Catholic School Sexually Abused Students and Church Covered It Up, Lawsuits Claim

By Rodrigo Torrejon
NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
August 12, 2020

https://www.nj.com/bergen/2020/08/coach-of-nj-catholic-school-sexually-abused-students-and-church-covered-it-up-lawsuits-claim.html

Two former students of a Bergen County Catholic school are accusing a hockey coach of sexually abusing them when they were minors and church and school officials of covering it all up, according to dual lawsuits.

In two lawsuits filed in Superior Court Aug. 6, two former students of Paramus Catholic High School allege years of sexual abuse by former hockey coach Bernard Garris in the late 1980s, claiming that the high school, Archdiocese of Newark and New Jersey Catholic Conference hid his rampant abuse and protected Garris.

The two former students are unnamed, both going by John Doe in their lawsuits. In 1986 or 1987, Garris, according to the lawsuits, was fired due to physically abusing the students. Garris died in 2016, according to the suits.

“During the years of Plaintiff’s abuse, upon information and belief, employees, agents, and volunteers of the Defendants knew or should have known that Garris had sexually inappropriate and/or sexually abusive relationships with many minor children, including Plaintiff,” the lawsuits both read.

A call to Paramus Catholic High School was referred to the Archdiocese of Newark. Calls to the New Jersey Catholic Conference were not immediately returned.

“It would be inappropriate for us to discuss or comment on matters in litigation,” said Maria Margiotta, spokeswoman for the Archdiocese of Newark. “The Archdiocese of Newark remains fully committed to transparency and to our long-standing programs to protect the faithful and will continue to work with victims, their legal representatives and law enforcement authorities in an ongoing effort to resolve allegations and bring closure to victims.”

From 1985 to 1988, when the two unnamed students were between 14 and 15 years old, Garris allegedly sexually abused them both while on Paramus Catholic High School grounds and on school-sanctioned athletic trips, according to the lawsuits.

In both cases, church and school officials allegedly knew about Garris’ sexual abuse of “many minor children,” including the two unnamed defendants, according to the lawsuit.

“By 1986 defendants had for many years concealed important information about credible allegations of abuse by Garris upon PCHS students,” the lawsuit said.

Garris was named to the Bergen County Coaches Association’s Century Victory Club for reaching 100 wins by 1985.

The complaints are among a wave of lawsuits filed in the wake of a 2019 law that vastly extended the amount of time victims of sexual abuse had to file complaints against their abusers. The law allows victims to bring a civil suit up until the age of 55 or seven years after they make “the discovery” connecting their emotional and psychological injury to the sexual abuse.

Through the law, victims were also granted a new two-year window to pursue their case, starting Dec. 1, 2019, when the bill became law and closing Nov. 30, 2021.

For years, the New Jersey Catholic Conference, one of the named defendants in both lawsuits, had lobbied lawmakers to avoid the legislation, claiming the church had been “unfairly maligned.” In 2019, months before the legislation became law, the executive director of the New Jersey Catholic Conference claimed that the Catholic Church had “cleaned up our act 20 years ago.”

Thank you for relying on us to provide the journalism you can trust. Please consider supporting NJ.com with a voluntary subscription.