MORRISTOWN (NJ)
Morristown Green [Morristown, NJ]
September 24, 2025
By Kevin Coughlin
Family and friends noticed alarming changes in T.M.’s personality at his Delbarton graduation party in 1977.
When he enrolled in the Catholic boys school in Morris Township back in 7th grade, he was happy, calm and confident in his ability to accomplish any task, according to a psychologist.
But at the family celebration in L’Affaire, a Morristown restaurant, he was abrupt, nasty and “positively rude” to Father Richard, observed T.M.’s mother. An ice skating pal of T.M. drove all the way from Colorado for the party. He too was surprised to see his unflappable friend “agitated and snippy” to the monk.
It took persistence to pry the reason for such animus from T.M: Father Richard, he confessed to his friend, had sexually abused him on campus during the 1975 Christmas break.
Sworn statements from T.M.’s late mother and his former skating friend were read to a jury Tuesday in Superior Court, Morristown. T.M. seeks damages from the former Rev. Richard Lott, 89, and from the Order of St. Benedict of New Jersey, which operates Delbarton and St. Mary’s Abbey. Lott and the religious order have denied T.M.’s allegations.
It’s the first of 39 such cases against Delbarton, and many more against other Catholic institutions across New Jersey, to go to trial.
T.M. has described the alleged assault — in a barn early on New Year’s Day 1976 after he had been plied with alcohol — as a “black cloud” that has shadowed him ever since, hindering intimacy and trust in others.
Jurors on Tuesday heard a clinical psychologist testify that T.M. showed symptoms of many forms of Post Traumatic Stress: Betrayal Trauma, Organizational Trauma, Re-Traumatizaton, Acute Stress Disorder, Complex Trauma, Trauma Bonding, Detached Avoidance Style, Compound PTSD.
“Male-on-male abuse can be extremely confusing for men,” said Christine Courtois, author of It’s Not You, It’s What Happened to You: Complex Trauma and Treatment. T.M. “felt a great deal of shame and confusion,” and tried to tough it out by developing a “compensatory style” that included “hyper-heterosexuality,” the psychologist said.
Under cross-examination by defense lawyer James Barletti, Courtois acknowledged that many of the traumas she cited are considered conditions, not diagnoses, by the medical health profession.
The defense continued to question T.M.’s trauma, reiterating how he held jobs for 40 years and stayed married for 18.
In a series of motions, Michael Geibelson and Rayna Kessler, lawyers for T.M., attempted to introduce statements and documents from other Delbarton cases. They aimed to show a pervasive culture of sexual predation at the school and gross negligence by the Benedictine order.
But attorney Kurt Krauss and others on the defense team objected strenuously. Superior Court Judge Louis Sceusi denied the motions, saying they either did not relate directly to this case or already were cited by witnesses.
The judge is weighing defense motions to dismiss the case. He has denied prior requests seeking to declare a mistrial.
‘BASICALLY, HE RAN AWAY’
Immediately after the uncomfortable 1977 graduation dinner, T.M. wrote a letter to then-Abbot Brian Clarke disclosing the alleged assault by Father Richard, a chemistry teacher who also oversaw a campus maintenance crew where T.M. had worked.
T.M. dropped the letter in a mailbox as he and his skater friend quietly drove off to New Orleans and then Colorado, angering T.M.’s parents.
“Basically, he ran away,” T.M.’s mother said in a deposition. When her son flew home later that summer, she pressed him about his rude behavior to Father Richard, who had been invited to the graduation dinner at the last minute by T.M.’s sister.
“He burst out crying and said, ‘Don’t talk to me about that effing f—–,’” the mother recounted.
T.M. met twice with Clarke about the letter, which the abbot would destroy a decade later. The teen-aged T.M. recounted to his mom that Clarke, referring to the letter, insisted he “was stunned and never heard anything like that before.”
The abbot, who died a few years ago, told T.M. that Father Richard had admitted everything. He would take care of this, and advised T.M. to keep quiet to avoid embarrassment, T.M.’s mother recollected. She said her son trusted Clarke — until he discovered subsequent abuse allegations against Father Richard.
Disillusioned, he dropped out of a university and a trade school before completing a hospitality degree.
Meanwhile, T.M. drifted apart from his skater friend. In his deposition, the friend noted T.M. had become “different, withdrawn, not as friendly.”
“I think someone who has gone through a traumatic incident like that changes,” the friend said.