DULUTH (MN)
Duluth News Tribune [Duluth MN]
April 10, 2026
By Tom Olsen
David Samarzia says he simply wanted to protect a group of local kids from the same pastor who had sexually abused him 25 years earlier.
But when he walked into a St. Paul law firm in March of 1991, it set off a series of events that would upend his life: a seven-year legal battle, a bitter public relations fight that landed him on national television, and a “total breakdown” that cost him his sobriety, career and home.
“I came to realize the sexual abuse that happened to me was less damaging in the long run than what the church, through the legal system, dragged me through,” Samarzia said.
In a new book, “Blindsided: A Memoir of Love, Loss, and Legal Abuse,” the Duluth native recalls in stark terms the abuse he suffered in the 1960s, his quest for accountability from his former church and the devastating effects the case had on his life after the headlines faded.
Samarzia, 72, recently spoke with the News Tribune about the book, co-authored by writer Carol Ann Tardiff, and the lessons he hopes to share with other abuse survivors. April marks the 25th anniversary of Sexual Assault Awareness Month.
“I’ve learned so much going through this that the public needs to know,” he said. “This is all that’s been on my mind for 34 years.”
Spiraling out of control
Samarzia writes about growing up in the Gary-New Duluth neighborhood, where he attended Redeemer Lutheran Church and was seemingly taken under the wing of its young, sports-car-driving pastor, Daniel Reeb.
He describes behavior that he would only later come to recognize as grooming. Reeb would take him on road trips, encourage him to shower and skinny dip together, and request massages as the youngster stayed overnight at his pastor’s apartment above the church’s teen center.
“Each time his touching went a little further,” Samarzia writes of the abuse, which started around age 11. It continued until he was 14, when he rebuffed the pastor’s effort to assault him as they shared a bed on a trip to Nebraska. Reeb, he said, soon thereafter seemed to take interest in a new group of prepubescent boys.
As Samarzia progressed through his teen years, he says he became increasingly isolated from family and friends, saw his grades slip, withdrew from sports and turned to alcohol. He attempted suicide at one point.
After getting married at 19 and having a child, he also saw his marriage deteriorate. Anxiety and panic attacks led him to give up promising roles in the accounting sector, setting up a home-based bookkeeping tax business where he could largely avoid people.
Samarzia says he never connected the dots between the pastor’s actions and his depression until 1990, when he was working with mental health therapist Shirley Levine. She explained he was experiencing shame, self-blame and guilt. Until that point, Samarzia says, he didn’t even realize Reeb had abused him.
Coming forward
After disclosing it to his parents, the family learned Reeb was still in ministry in the Bahamas, and that a dozen local youth had been selected to visit him on a mission trip. Meanwhile, new guidelines were being circulated for sex abuse claims by the Missouri Synod’s local district.
The Samarzias first went to church leaders in an effort to stop the youth trip; he says they downplayed the abuse and allowed the trip to proceed as planned.
Meanwhile, Samarzia retained lawyer Jeff Anderson, who still today is one of the nation’s foremost child sexual abuse attorneys. Naive about the legal process, Samarzia writes that he signed an agreement allowing Anderson to take a 50% cut of the eventual award from a lawsuit filed in May 1991.
Samarzia, who had filed the case anonymously, says a pastor then outed him as the plaintiff to the congregation. He began receiving harassing phone calls, while church lawyers filed seemingly endless motions and delayed the trial.
A Duluth jury finally heard the case in 1994. Reeb admitted to sexual contact, but claimed Samarzia initiated it and testified that he only later understood his actions to fall under the definition of sexual abuse.
The panel found Reeb and the church liable and awarded $643,800 in damages, but determined the Missouri Synod’s district and national levels were not responsible.
A series of appeals followed over the next several years. Samarzia learned of a final decision from the Minnesota Supreme Court in January 1997, just hours after his father’s death from a heart attack.
Settling with the church
Samarzia says he was alternately “viewed as either a hero or a dog” in the community — a man who stood with courage and conviction, or simply someone looking for money and attention, depending on who you asked.
The battle would get even uglier over the next year and a half. The church’s insurance company agreed to pay out only $215,000; Samarzia says he turned most of the funds over to Anderson.
Struggling to collect the remaining money, he eventually forgave approximately $300,000 worth of accrued interest, while a lien was placed on the church building and the sheriff seized its bank account.
When its contents went up for an auction intended to benefit Samarzia, he paid $25,000 so the items would remain with the building — and agreed to return everything to the congregation for $200,000, less than half of what he was still owed, in exchange for an apology.
By that time, though, the story had gained significant media attention, bringing national television networks to Duluth, and the congregation hosted what was expected to be its final service. Some members harshly criticized Samarzia, accusing him of taking away their church over the actions of one man decades earlier.
“My parents watched all this on local, state and national news and things saying that I was a greedy accountant and all that,” Samarzia said. “When I came forward to the church, I was not looking for money.”
The deal fell apart after a church secretary told the News Tribune that the church was not accepting responsibility, prompting Samarzia to file a second lawsuit.
But the parties again came to terms: The church agreed to pay an additional $2,500 to a victims’ organization, and every member of the church signed a letter of apology. The church was rededicated a month after closing with great fanfare, and remains in operation today.
Three other Reeb victims secured settlements in lawsuits brought against Redeemer after Samarzia went public with his case. Reeb was eventually removed from ministry and died in Colorado in December 2023 at age 88.
Understanding ‘legal abuse’
Samarzia had won the legal battle, but it came at a steep cost. Sober for nearly nine years, he started drinking again. His small business was decimated by the publicity, leaving him with just a handful of loyal clients. The bank foreclosed on his house.
All things considered, Samarzia says he gained only about $70,000 from the lawsuit. But the community was left with the impression that he scored a major windfall; he says strangers approached him in public, many negative letters appeared in the newspaper and a profane message was taped to every window of his home.
The book discusses the concept of “legal abuse syndrome,” which was coined by clinical psychologist Karin Huffer to describe a form of post-traumatic stress disorder from protracted litigation that wears victims down mentally, emotionally and financially.
“It’s terrible,” he said. “They rip you apart. You’re already so vulnerable inside and all that, and they tear you down.”
In particular, he said he sees deceptive advertisements from law firms promising anonymity to victims — a judge has to grant permission for a plaintiff to proceed under a pseudonym — and verdicts often are not what they seem.
Samarzia says he felt “outraged and helpless against a system I had trusted” and wanted to share his journey in hopes of helping others. He said he was doing it for his “heroes” — his parents and his uncle, former Duluth Police Chief Milo Tasky.
“I was taught and brought up that adults take care of kids, no matter what,” he said. “I had to step up.”
Samarzia, who now lives in Michigan, said he made multiple attempts to pull the book together, starting in 1998. In a sense, though, he said it’s fortunate that it didn’t happen until decades later, giving him valuable insight and experience.
He hinted that he’s working on a second book covering his subsequent activities and the “intractable problems in our legal system.”
Helping other survivors
Over the years, Samarzia volunteered for the Program for Aid to Victims of Sexual Assault, Men as Peacemakers and First Witness Child Advocacy Center.
Current PAVSA Director Mary Faulkner was among those who endorsed the book, writing that it can inspire readers to believe abuse survivors and understand that the healing journey is not always linear. She suggested a shift in the response from “What is wrong with you?” to “What has happened to you?”
“We will each have opportunities throughout our lives to create spaces where survivors, particularly boys and men, can disclose abuse and to create communities where survivors can heal and thrive,” Faulkner wrote. “I’m grateful to David for the support that he has provided survivors and for this memoir, which will validate the experiences of many more.”
Samarzia says he’s fielded countless calls from victims and family members. Some religious institutions, including the Missouri Synod and Catholic Church, have improved their policies, he said. Others have not, and there is still a long way to go in educational, sports and entertainment settings.
But is there truly such a thing as closure?
“Some survivors manage to find a way forward,” he said. “But I suspect there are many like me, just trying to cope day by day.”