Former student claims ‘monster’ abused him in Bronx high school, supports Child Victims Act

NEW YORK
New York Daily News

MICHAEL O’KEEFFE
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Monday, May 30, 2016

He was the dean of discipline, and Kirk Balay remembers how he would always be lurking as students got off the train on their way to Cardinal Hayes High School in the Bronx.

Brother John Justin O’Connor, a large, heavyset friar, was on the prowl for any behavior — shouting, cursing, horsing around — he deemed worthy of punishment.

For Balay, who seemed to run afoul of O’Connor at least once a week throughout the fall of 1985 and into 1986, discipline often consisted of being sexually and physically abused.

Sometimes O’Connor had him stand facing a classroom wall for two or three hours with two dozen other disciplined students, Balay said.

More frequently, he would bring Balay to his office, where he would beat and molest him.

“It started out with him groping my buttocks as he paddled me and it evolved into him trying to rip my clothes off as he fondled himself,” said Balay, 45, who claims he first received “jug” — “justice under God” — from O’Connor about three weeks into his freshman year.

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