STATEN ISLAND (NY)
June 16, 2019
By Joseph Ostapiuk
To some it was a safe haven, an environment where struggling children put their lives back on track.
Others, however, claim it was a place where predators preyed upon their vulnerabilities.
Former residents of the Mission of the Immaculate Virgin, Mount Loretto, are embroiled after a bombshell court filing alleged that a woman who attended the haven suffered physical and sexual abuse at the hands of several nuns and at least one lay person.
Sly Francis, 61, a former NYPD detective and a resident of Mount Loretto from 1963 to 1972, said that he never previously heard of allegations or rumors that nuns sexually abused any of the residents.
“I can’t dismiss her allegations,” said Francis, who attended Mount Loretto from the ages of 6 to 15, “but I never witnessed anyone or never heard of anyone — a female or male — being sexually abused by the nuns.”
While Francis admitted that both nuns and priests at the school doled out discipline to students “because of behavior,” he said that he was never abused.
Francis, a chronic runaway as a child after his parents divorced, said that his time at the manor “saved” his life.
At only five years old, Francis would go into the street “for weeks at a time” and said that he often ended up “in strange people’s houses” before being told he would be forced to go to a reform school. However, a priest at Mount Loretto reached out to Francis’ mother, and he soon after attended the mission.
“The kids that were there became my family, and it put me on the right path,” Francis said.
The court filing was made by Robin Campbell, whose maiden name is Robin Miller. Miller lived at the Pleasant Plains mission between the ages of 6 and 11, from 1960 through 1966, according to documents filed in Manhattan state Supreme Court.
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