MICHIGAN
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests
For immediate release: Thursday, July 23
Statement by David Clohessy of St. Louis, Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (314 566 9790, davidgclohessy@gmail.com)
We’re glad that a sexual harassment case against an Adrian College professor is moving ahead but deeply disturbed that school administrators are again embroiled in a scandal involving a staff member. For years, we have prodded Adrian officials about an admitted predator who is still teaching at the college.
Vic Libiri is accused of sexually harassing a student. Adrian music professor Thomas Hodgman, however, is accused of assaulting a girls and admitted molesting two girls. He is accused of molesting at least one more.
Yet he’s still on the college payroll and his college supervisors and colleagues are doing nothing to safeguard the vulnerable on campus – students, staff, volunteers, alums, and prospective students.
Hodgman’s former employer had to pay $1.6 million to a California woman who was repeatedly sexually violated by Hodgman when she was a youngster.
From 1986-1990, Hodgman taught at Mater Dei High School in Orange County California, where he met the three girls. The names of two of them are confidential.
But the third, Joelle Casteix, is now an award-winning advocate for abuse victims and our group’s long time volunteer Western Regional Director.
In 2005, Casteix traveled from her California home to Adrian and met with then-President Stanley Caine. She expressed her fear that Hodgman might still be molesting children. But Caine took no action, telling Casteix that her motivation was “sour grapes.”
In court documents, Casteix also says that Hodgman impregnated her and gave her a sexually transmitted disease.
Through her civil lawsuit against Hodgman and his former school, Casteix has obtained roughly 200 pages of personnel documents, which she has posted on her website:
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