NEWARK (NJ)
nj.com [New Jersey]
September 20, 2025
By Ted Sherman For The Star-Ledger
The trial, the first involving a former student alleging clergy abuse decades ago, could result in financial and reputational damage for prestigious school.
It has long been regarded as one of the top private preparatory schools in New Jersey.
Business leaders, lawyers, politicians and playwrights have studied on its sprawling wooded campus in Morristown.
Ranked near the top in almost every sport, it is considered one of the best athletics schools in the state. Before Anthony Volpe was drafted by the Yankees, he took the school’s baseball team to a state championship with teammate Jack Leiter, now a pitcher for the Twins.
But decades ago, Delbarton — the elite Catholic all-boys school operated by the Benedictine monks of St. Mary’s Abbey who oversee the institution — held a dark secret, according to dozens of former students. In decades-old complaints of sexual assault that have only come to light in recent years, the former students say administrators long turned a blind eye to predators who lurked within the clergy.
The school acknowledged those complaints and offered an apology in 2018 “to anyone who has suffered sexual abuse or harassment because of the actions of a St. Mary’s Abbey monk or Delbarton School employee.”
But the first of the many lawsuits against Delbarton is now playing out in a small, fourth-floor courtroom in a civil trial that could have major implications on the school and its accusers.
Should Delbarton lose the case, it could suffer both financially and in the impact to its reputation, according to legal experts. The school filed suit in federal court a week ago against its insurance carrier for refusing to settle the case, noting the danger Delbarton faces in going to trial over the accusations.
In its court papers, Delbarton cited pretrial discovery, which included depositions by many of those expected to testify, which disclosed potential factual support for the former student’s allegations. That opens the possibility of a large compensatory award and punitive damages if the school loses in court.
Outcome of Delbarton case could have major implications for prestigious school
At the same time, a decision in favor of the school and the Benedictine order could be a devastating blow for alleged victims of sexual abuse at Delbarton, advocates say.
“I think it will affect the number of survivors who have had some hope that the judicial system might finally rule in favor of victims,” said Robert Hoatson, a former priest and the president and co-founder of Road to Recovery, a group that supports victims of clergy sexual abuse.
“Their generational cynicism about justice or lack of justice might grow and they might go back into the shadows,” he said.
The case on trial in Morristown alleges that a then-15-year-old student was sexually assaulted by a monk after a night of drinking at a New Year’s Eve Party in Mendham some 50 years ago.
The alleged victim, identified only by his initials, said his life was forever altered by the sexual assault. The Rev. Richard Lott — the now 89-year-old former monk accused in the lawsuit — denies he sexually assaulted the boy.
Lawyers for the school, the Order of St. Benedict of New Jersey, and Lott himself, told the jury that there was no New Year’s Eve party and the monk was an hour and a half away at St. Mary’s Parish in Lakewood on that evening in 1975.
More than two dozen others, though, have made similar claims against Delbarton involving a number of monks when the school had dorms and boarding students. Those alleged victims are awaiting their day in court as well.
FADED MEMORIES
The trial unfolding in Morristown recounts events alleged to have occurred in the 1970s and underscores the difficulty in presenting facts to the jury.
For some witnesses, memories have faded. Others involved in the case are now dead, their words played back in court through video recordings of sworn depositions they gave in the years leading up to the long-delayed trial.
And some have been reluctant to testify, including Auxiliary Bishop Elias R. Lorenzo of the Archdiocese of Newark — a potential successor to Cardinal Joseph Tobin. Lawyers for the alleged victim in the case argued that Lorenzo “played a central role” in the handling of allegations of sexual abuse, many of which stemmed from the same 1970s period at issue in this case, directing responses, advising abbots at St. Mary’s Abbey and recommending investigators.
Lorenzo claimed he had no personal knowledge of the allegations being made and was living in Rome when the complaint at the heart of the current trial against Delbarton was filed.
On Thursday, the judge in the case agreed with Lorenzo and ordered the subpoena be quashed.
Former New Jersey Attorney General John Farmer Jr., who served as dean of the Rutgers University School of Law, said trying a case based on 50-year-old allegations “will turn for parties on the frailty, or reliability, of memories over a long period of time.”
One of the main reasons there are laws about statutes of limitations is because memories can become increasingly unreliable as time passes, making the result of a trial less likely to be “just,” Farmer said.
But the state in 2019 passed the Child Victims Act, which greatly extended the amount of time childhood victims of sexual abuse can sue. That opened a floodgate of filings against the Catholic Church and other institutions in New Jersey, including the dozens of lawsuits pending against Delbarton.
Yet the case now in court took years to get there.
Bill Crane, the son of a former Delbarton teacher and administrator who with his brother Tom became the first public faces of abuse at the boys’ school, said when they first exposed what had happened to them, the school “began a very lengthy process of intimidation.”
The law expanding victims’ right to sue in 2019 changed everything, “giving survivors a fair shot at justice,” Crane said. But “it has taken far too long to get here.”
Farmer expects that as the ongoing trial continues, “each side will attempt to bolster the credibility of the recollections of its witnesses by pointing to independent corroboration.” That could include pointing to contemporaneous documents, diary entries or cases where alleged victims confided of the abuse to friends.
That’s how lawyers for the alleged victim in the Delbarton case have been presenting the matter at trial before a jury of four women and four men. Numerous witnesses have testified about similar abuse they endured at Delbarton, with one describing what he called “a culture of sickness.”
“I think it will affect the number of survivors who have had some hope that the judicial system might finally rule in favor of victims.”
Robert Hoatson, a former priest and the president and co-founder of Road to Recovery, a group that supports victims of clergy sexual abuse
Among them was an initiate who testified he was abused by several monks, including Lott, whom he referred to as “Father Richard.”
“At one point in my stay there, Father Richard had become a ‘rogue monk,’ so to speak, and became housed down in the barn that was on the property, a working barn, and was no longer attending regular functions that were required by the monastery, the prayer sessions,” the witness testified.
He described multiple sexual assaults by Lott.
The jury heard from a now-deceased former headmaster in a video deposition that he did not remove another monk accused of abuse after becoming abbot because “we didn’t have to.”
Lori Albanese, a Delbarton case manager since 2018, testified that the school did not have any written policies regarding a student’s claim of sexual abuse by an employee in the 1970s.
On the witness stand on Thursday, the now 65-year-old alleged victim himself told his story to the jury. He said he had come to know Lott as a student worker for the maintenance department, which was overseen by the monk.
“He was different from the other monks. Nice. Friendly. Engaging,” he said, noting that the monk was often dressed not in a traditional habit and hood, but in flannel shirts, jeans and work boots.
Lott had moved from the monastery to the Delbarton barn, where work crews often congregated at the end of the day to socialize over beers, the former student testified. Despite his age, he would join them.
“It was always Budweiser for Fr. Richard,” he testified. “Drinking beer was a regular thing.”
In December of 1975, with Delbarton closed for Christmas break, he said he remained on the campus to help with recovery work following a fire in the monastery several weeks earlier. He stayed in the barn, which had living quarters for Lott.
On New Year’s Eve, he said Lott invited him to a party at a home in Mendham and he accompanied him there.
Getting back to Delbarton sometime after midnight, he admitted “I was wobbly,” and he plopped down on a sofa. It was there, he told the jury, that Lott sexually assaulted him, describing in detail what happened.
Lott, sitting behind the defense table, expressed no emotion as members of the jury listened intently.
When he realized what had happened, the former student said he fled the barn into the night as the monk called out, “I love you!”
The alleged victim said he never told his parents. But when he graduated, he said he finally worked up the courage to write a letter about the abuse to the school’s abbot, Brian Clarke. He said the abbot later told him that Lott had “acknowledged the incident,” but the administration never did anything about it.
The letter, handwritten on a 5×7 piece of paper, was left in his desk drawer until Clarke, who died in October 2019, discarded it, the attorney said, because “it was bad for the reputation of the school.”
A LONELY FIGURE
Lott, while still a priest, no longer ministers and has asked to be addressed as “mister” and not “father.”
He cuts a lonely figure in the courtroom. He sits by himself and speaks to no one. During the trial, he has taken lunch by himself in a courthouse lunchroom, eating from a green lunch bag.
When he finishes, he appears to nap, his eyes closed, as he remains in his seat until the court session resumes.
In his own testimony on Wednesday, Lott said he was not at Delbarton the New Year’s Eve when the alleged assault happened.
“On weekends we would go out to work at parishes, St. Mary’s, to hear confessions, and on holidays, the same thing,” he testified.
He said that Lakewood, where St. Mary’s was located, would be at least an hour and a half drive, so he always went the night before.
“Is there any documentation of your trip?” asked attorney Michael Geibelson, who represents the former student.
“No,” replied Lott.
“Is there any witness that you know that can corroborate your testimony?” Geibelson asked “The pastor is deceased,” Lott said. The defense has yet to put on its case at the trial.
The impact of the lawsuit on Delbarton’s future, should the school lose, remains an unknown.
Mark Crawford, a clergy abuse survivor and state director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, who has attended the trial, said Delbarton is a well-established private school with significant tuition revenue, a strong donor base and valuable assets.
“Even if the damages are large, it’s unlikely that one verdict alone would threaten the school’s survival in the short term. However, if the 29 additional lawsuits move forward or if settlements multiply, the cumulative financial strain could become much more serious,” he said.
“The greater and more immediate risk is reputational. Allegations of sexual abuse, especially involving many minor students, cut directly against the trust that parents place in a school,” Crawford said. “Even institutions with long histories and strong alumni networks can see enrollment drop and donations stall if families and benefactors lose confidence.”
Farmer agreed that the consequences of an adverse judgment to the school may be difficult to assess.
“Delbarton is among the most prestigious prep schools in the nation, and sends its students to top Catholic universities like Georgetown and Notre Dame, as well as to Ivy League schools. I doubt that it will be shunned by those universities as a source of great students,” the former attorney general said.
“A large verdict against the school may, however, open the floodgates of litigation and challenge the school financially and will certainly result, if it hasn’t already, in insistence by the parents and alumni that reforms be implemented to assure the future well-being of its students,” Farmer said.
Delbarton, for its part, has declined to comment, noting a court order that parties not talk about the case.
But a spokeswoman for the school noted a past statement from St. Mary’s Abbey Administrator Abbot Jonathan Licari and Delbarton’s headmaster, the Rev. Michael Tidd.
The statement said “the communities of St. Mary’s Abbey and Delbarton School have genuine compassion for any victim of abuse. To safeguard the well-being of the students in our care today, we take rigorous actions, which are regularly reviewed and affirmed by Praesidium, the leading independent auditing firm in this field.”
School officials said they have encouraged anyone believing they have been the victim of a sexual assault, no matter how long ago, to inform law enforcement, the abbey and/or Delbarton School.
“We have fully cooperated with law enforcement to support independent investigations of any accusations that are made, and we also took actions to prevent any accused monks who were still alive and members of St. Mary’s Abbey from having any interaction with students at Delbarton,” the school’s statement said.
The trial in Morristown continues on Monday.