NEW JERSEY
MyCentralJersey
Written by
Sergio Bichao
Staff Writer
SOMERVILLE — Kevin Waldrip was 13 years old in 1964, the year he says he was raped by a priest in Newark.
But he didn’t tell anyone.
Not even when the priest, Richard Galdon, was finally brought to justice in the 1980s for molesting more than a dozen other Catholic school boys as a Boy Scout troop chaplain. Galdon was sentenced in 1987 to 25 years in prison.
But while Waldrip followed the scandal and trial in the newspaper, rejoicing in Galdon’s “comeuppance,” it took him until just six years ago to talk about what happened to him as a boy.
“You keep it secret,” he said. “People are so embarrassed, so ashamed, you can’t bring yourself to speak to anyone — not to spouses, not to friends.”
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