PENNSYLVANIA
WYTV
[with video]
Five former students at a Johnstown, Pa. Catholic school said in phone interviews on Thursday that Franciscan friar Stephen P. Baker molested them while they were athletes being treated for injuries during their time at the school during the mid-to-late 1990s.
The former students from Bishop McCort High School, who will not be identified because they are alleged victims of sexual abuse, played sports at the school from 1993 through 1999 and said Baker would touch their genitals and often digitally penetrated them while under the guise of treating sports injuries.
The accounts mirrored two of the 11 former students from Warren John F. Kennedy High School in Warren who received high-five figure settlements with the Youngstown Diocese, the T.O.R. Franciscan Order in Pennsylvania and JFK for being allegedly abused by Baker during what was supposed to be treatment for minor sports injuries.
Baker was the sports trainer and religion teacher at Bishop McCort during the 1990s. He also coached the junior varsity baseball team and other youth traveling baseball teams unaffiliated with the school, according to interviews.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.