Jesuit High sex abuse settlements kept quiet; 1 victim speaks out for first time

NEW ORLEANS (LA)
The Advocate

September 20, 2018

By Ramon Antonio Vargas

Ricky Windmann wasn’t nervous when he accompanied janitor Peter Modica to his ground-floor maintenance office at Jesuit High School on an otherwise unremarkable day in the late 1970s.

After all, Modica – a former semipro baseball player – had let the skinny, light-haired boy play basketball on the school’s grounds several times, even though he wasn’t a student. He also bought Windmann a bike and stopped by the boy’s house, which was a couple blocks from the school’s Mid-City campus, to meet Windmann’s mother.

But any feeling of safety was replaced by paralyzing fear when Modica suddenly pulled Windmann’s pants down and forcibly performed oral sex on him. Windmann doesn’t recall his exact age at the time, but he said he believes he was in his early teens.

The janitor would go on to sexually abuse the adolescent several more times in the ensuing years – once in concert with a Jesuit priest and teacher, Neil Carr – only stopping when Windmann grew big enough to protect himself.

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