PORTLAND (ME)
Press Herald
December 17, 2017
By Eric Russell
[See also some earlier articles about Charles Malia.]
At Cheverus, they were taught moral responsibility, but victims of alleged abuse by a former teacher say they’re still waiting for the school and the Jesuit community to practice what they preach.
When Michael Sweatt looked at his son’s schedule and saw the familiar name of a teacher, he went to the school and demanded his son be removed from that class.
Cheverus officials balked at first, he said, until Sweatt revealed that the teacher, Charles Malia, abused him back in the mid-1970s.
Sweatt said the response from the school’s then-president, John Mullen, was, “Why would you enroll your son here?”
“My response was: Because I know where the pedophile is in the building,” Sweatt said. “I don’t know where he is at Deering or Portland.”
Since that day in 1997, a dozen former Cheverus students have come forward saying Malia molested them.
But Malia wasn’t alone.
Just last month, another former Cheverus employee who was a Jesuit priest when he sexually abused students at the school was charged with a new crime – sexually assaulting a 9-year-old boy in Freeport 20 years ago.
For Sweatt and other victims, the re-emergence of James Francis Talbot in the news is a reminder of the justice they never got from the school in Portland. While a few victims of Talbot received civil settlements, Malia’s victims have never been offered settlements and have no power to go to court.
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