ROCKVILLE CENTRE (NY)
The New York Times
October 16, 2017
By Sharon Otterman
Thomas McGarvey was going through a hard time as a teenager in 1981 when he first reached out to his parish priest, the Rev. Robert L. Brown, for spiritual guidance and someone to talk to.
Instead, Mr. McGarvey said he became a victim. At age 16, he began sleeping over at the rectory of St. Catherine of Sienna Parish in Franklin Square, N.Y, in Father Brown’s room, under the noses of the other priests and staff, he said. It was there that the abuse occurred, he alleged, in encounters ranging from fondling to rape. And through the eight years it continued, from 1981 to 1989, Mr. McGarvey alleged, no one helped him, even though he revealed the abuse in confessions with other priests.
“I thought I could trust Father Brown,” Mr. McGarvey, who is now 52, said in an emotional interview on Monday. “I thought I had a friend, but he took advantage of me.”
Several years ago, Mr. McGarvey finally began talking about the abuse, he said. He contacted a lawyer, Mitchell Garabedian, who told the Diocese of Rockville Centre, which includes Nassau and Suffolk Counties on Long Island. But because Father Brown had died in the mid-1990s, their lawyer replied by letter that it was “wholly impossible for the Diocese to investigate this claim at this juncture,” Mr. Garabedian said.
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