BALTIMORE (MD)
Baltimore Sun [Baltimore MD]
March 29, 2023
By Jean Marbella
Some 20 years ago, Ross Wiest’s job took him a couple of times to Stella Maris in Timonium, where he noticed a man who lived there looking at him and smiling.
“I know you,” said the nursing home resident.
Wiest recognized him, as well, but walked away without responding.
What could he say at that point to A. Joseph Maskell, the Baltimore priest accused of sexually abusing multiple Catholic school students and suspected, if not proven, of involvement in the unsolved murder of a nun?
What could Wiest say, when for so long he had kept secret his own childhood abuse and torture by Maskell and other priests?
Wiest is 68 now. Over time and in a more deliberative way than possible in the unexpected encounter shortly before Maskell’s death, he has found his voice.
About a month ago, his lawyer said, he settled an abuse claim against the Baltimore archdiocese for $60,000 and a letter of apology from Archbishop William Lori.
And Wiest said he spoke more than a year ago to the Maryland Attorney General’s Office for its investigation into decades of clergy sexual abuse, the results of which are detailed in a 456-page report due for release any day now.
His settlement with the archdiocese and the impending report bring Wiest a measure of peace.
“Something was done about what I went through,” he said.
Christian Kendzierski, spokesman for the archdiocese, confirmed the settlement. The archdiocese has settled the claims of 23 victims of Maskell over the years, paying them a total of $1.2 million, he said.
Terrible memories tumbled forth from Wiest in no particular order during a recent interview in the office of his lawyer, Joanne Suder.
He was an 11-year-old student at Our Lady of Victory in Arbutus, just blocks from where he grew up, when the abuse began, Wiest said, and over the next several years, it escalated to torture, threats on his life and being shared to priests in other parishes.
His ordeal stands apart even for Suder, who estimates she has represented more than 100 victims of child sex abuse, including some with claims against the archdiocese’s most notorious perpetrators: John Merzbacher, a teacher at a South Baltimore Catholic school now serving four life sentences for rape and child abuse, and Maskell, the Archbishop Keough High School chaplain in the 1970s who was featured in the 2017 Netflix series, “The Keepers.”
“The trafficking puts it on a different level,” she said of Wiest. “It’s just outrageous.”
[Photo: Ross Wiest, pictured in the office of his attorney, recently settled an abuse claim against the Baltimore archdiocese for $60,000 and a letter of apology. Wiest said he spoke more than a year ago to the Maryland Attorney General’s Office for its investigation into decades of clergy sexual abuse, the results of which are detailed in a 456-page report due for release any day now. (Karl Merton Ferron/Baltimore Sun)]
In addition to Maskell, Wiest said, other priests, including E. Neil Magnus, also at Keough, and John Carney, who was at Our Lady of Victory in the 1960s and 1970s, abused him. All three, who have since died, are on the archdiocese’s list of credibly accused clergy.
Even now, as church officials and abuse victims brace for the release of the attorney general’s decades-spanning report, former Catholic school students like Wiest are coming forward with childhood memories.
Experts say it can take decades for victims to get to the point of disclosure — on average, they are about 52 years old, according to Child USA, a think tank and advocacy group. But a vast majority never tell authorities, the Justice Department says, with 86% of childhood sexual assaults going unreported to police, school or other officials.
Pale, with thinning hair and guarded eyes, Wiest relays experiences that serve as a preview of the attorney general’s report, which is expected to provide a devastating accounting of abuse suffered by more than 600 children.
Wiest said Maskell would take him and other boys out of class to a room where, with their pants and underwear pulled down, “he would insert plastic toys” in them.
Priests also had sex with him and tortured him, Wiest said, and he was taken to other parishes and offices in Baltimore,Catonsville, Towson, Washington, D.C., and even Fort Meade, where Suder said Maskell served as a chaplain, for further abuse.
Maskell was at Our Lady of Victory from 1968 to 1970, a time that overlapped with when he worked part-time at Keough, according to the archdiocese. Wiest said the priest would pay him sometimes, for tasks like helping him move boxes — and more.
“He was even giving me a cut for the priests that were paying him to have sex with me,” he said.
He said he was drugged, threatened with a gun and subjected to painfully loud sounds, along with other severe physical abuse. His hearing has deteriorated over the years, and he wears a hearing aid now.
“It was terrible,” Wiest said.
Suder said such tactics are used to try to erase memories. She said she verifies her clients’ claims, and shares her sources with church and other authorities.
Kendzierski said the archdiocese cannot always confirm everything a victim reports, particularly when many years have passed and a full investigation is not possible.
Suder said she believes Wiest was targeted because he seemed vulnerable, stuttering when he was scared.
[Photo: “Portrait of the Painter Gerhard Munthe (painted by artist Christian Krohg [1852-1925]) hangs above Ross Wiest in the office of his attorney. Wiest says he was sex-trafficked by Father A. Joseph Maskell, the Baltimore priest accused of sexually abusing multiple Catholic school students and suspected, if not proven, of involvement in the unsolved murder of a nun. (Karl Merton Ferron/Baltimore Sun)]
He never told his parents or siblings about the abuse.
“I was afraid, for one thing,” Wiest said.
There was one person he confided in: Sister Cathy Cesnik. She’s the Keough teacher who some former students say knew of abuse allegations against Maskell, which they believe is why she was murdered. Before his death in 2001, Maskell denied in interviews with police and The Baltimore Sun that he had abused students or had any knowledge of Cesnik’s murder, which remains unsolved.
Wiest said Maskell sometimes used him as a messenger, which is how he came to know Sister Cathy.
“He was sending me to go talk to her … saying he wants to see her, to talk to her,” Wiest said. “She asked me one day, ‘Are you being molested by Father Maskell?’”
Wiest said he told her he was. “She said, ‘I’ll take care of it,’” he said.
But on Nov. 7, 1969, the 26-year-old Cesnik went to cash her paycheck and shop, and never returned to her Baltimore apartment. Almost two months later, her battered body was found in a remote area of Lansdowne in Baltimore County.
In 1994, after multiple former Keough students accused Maskell of abusing them, the archdiocese removed him from the ministry.
[PHOTO: Ross Wiest says a settlement and a soon-to-be-released investigative report by the Maryland Attorney General’s Office into decades of clergy sexual abuse bring him a measure of peace. “Something was done about what I went through,” he said. (Karl Merton Ferron/Baltimore Sun)]
After high school, Wiest went to college for a time and worked as a photographer, and for sign and reprographic companies. The Catonsville resident, who has been married for 22 years, is now retired.
Over the years, he said he began to think more about the abuse, with something happening that would trigger memories to “flash” in his head. He has seen a psychiatrist, and said it helps.
“To this day, he’s traumatized by what happened,” Suder said.
Wiest approached her about eight years ago, and it’s taken this long to decide whether and how to go forward.
Some victims have been waiting for the Maryland General Assembly to lift a statute of limitations for child sex abuse lawsuits. This could be the year for that legislation: The Senate has passed it for the first time (Senate Bill 686) and the measure is before the House of Delegates, which passed similar bills in previous years.
Rather than go through the courts, Wiest decided to enter a mediated settlement process, presided over by a retired judge.
Wiest said he spends his time these days drawing, reading and writing. Whether because of his hearing difficulties or the discomfort of the subject, he doesn’t elaborate on his feelings about the past.
But he said he feels good about finalizing a settlement with the archdiocese.
Or at least, he said, “better.”
[PHOTO: Ross Wiest says he was drugged, threatened with a gun and subjected to painfully loud sounds, along with other severe physical abuse. His hearing has deteriorated over the years, and he wears a hearing aid now. “It was terrible,” Wiest said. (Karl Merton Ferron/Baltimore Sun)]