MISSOURI
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
By Joel Currier
ST. LOUIS COUNTY • A Wentzville man who attended Chaminade College Preparatory School in the 1970s has filed a lawsuit accusing the Marianists of concealing knowledge of child sex abuse by priests at the school.
Christopher Wimmer, 57, filed the case Tuesday in St. Louis County Circuit Court alleging the Creve Coeur prep school and its leaders lied to “multiple” sex abuse victims by telling them they were the first to report abuse by clergy.
Wimmer also alleges that he was abused by the Revs. Louis Meinhardt, who worked at the school from 1958 to 1982, and John Woulfe, who left the order in 1977 after nine years. Meinhardt died in 1990. Woulfe died in 2005. Wimmer seeks unspecified damages.
“I went to the Marianists about this abuse years ago and they lied to me about the abusers,” Wimmer said in a prepared statement. “I’m not the only one who has suffered like this. I have lost friends to suicide because what the Marianists have done has been too much to bear.”
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