YORK (PA)
York Daily Record
February 22, 2019
By Candy Woodall
The church found that two reports of child sexual abuse by David Luck were credible.
Even an investigation launched in the wake of the Sandusky trial failed to reveal these allegations.
Luck has now filed a grievance against York County, which fired him in August.
Father David H. Luck allegedly raped one boy and molested another, according to findings in a Pennsylvania grand jury report.
He reportedly told people that he fantasized about sex with boys and that he was a pedophile.
The Diocese of Harrisburg removed him from ministry in 1990.
But for nearly 24 years after that, a York Daily Record investigation has revealed, York County hired him to work with some of the area’s most vulnerable residents.
Reached at his home recently, Luck declined to discuss the past allegations or his work with the county. That work typically involves direct contact with many people who have mental disabilities.
County officials say they were unaware of his history until August when Luck’s name appeared among 301 priests named in a Pennsylvania grand jury report. He was terminated about a month later.
The diocese and Roman Catholic Church concealed the allegations against him in secret archives for decades.
The family of a 15-year-old boy who said he was raped by Luck went to police, according to the grand jury report. A document from 1996 said the diocese would cooperate if it was contacted by police about Luck, but Luck was never criminally charged and diocese officials never reported the allegations.
Hiding the allegations against him ensured Luck would never appear on a Megan’s Law list or have any trouble passing a background check for child sexual abuse, although he was accused of abusing two boys.
Even so, it took the county 21 years to run any kind of background check on Luck, who is now 58 years old. The county didn’t search state and federal records until 2015, when state child safety laws changed and required it.
Luck was hired by York County on Jan. 18, 1994, as a caseworker in the Mental Health/Intellectual and Development Disabilities section of the Human Services department.
He was terminated on Sept. 21, 2018, about a month after the Pennsylvania grand jury report was released. The county has not specified the reason for his termination.
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“His employment separation was involuntary,” said county spokesman Mark Walters. “There is currently an outstanding grievance case between David Luck and the county, so regarding his involuntary separation, we won’t comment further.”
It remains unclear what the county knew in the 1990s when it hired Luck and how much it tried to learn about his past.
The grand jury report revealed that “a mental health agency” in 1996 asked the Diocese of Harrisburg for a reference. In a memo dated July 15, 1996, the Rev. Paul Helwig told Bishop Nicholas Dattilo the diocese “received a standard form, but instead of responding to the questions on the form, I wrote a letter and stated that, ‘Because of conduct unbefitting a minister of the Church, David was relieved of his duties and does not have authorization to present himself or work as a priest.'”
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There are no records that indicate the mental health agency followed up to ask what kind of conduct was unbefitting of a minister of the church or why he was relieved of his duties during a time when the church rarely removed priests, even for abuse.
What that mental health agency didn’t know was that Luck was accused of raping a 15-year-old boy and fondling an 11-year-old boy in the late 1980s.
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