(NJ)
Daily Record [Morristown NJ]
May 13, 2026
By William Westhoven
A former student who won $5 million in a landmark clergy sexual abuse trial against the Delbarton School has gone back to court, saying the elite Morris County private school withheld key evidence during the case.
The former student, who said he was abused in the 1970s, has asked a New Jersey judge to impose additional sanctions against the all-boys’ school and the Catholic order of monks that operates it.
They failed to disclose “highly material documents,” including interviews by a private investigator hired by Delbarton to examine allegations of abuse, according to the motion filed in state Superior Court in Morristown April 22.
The resulting damage to the plaintiff’s case was “substantial, particularly because the withheld evidence surfaced only after the jury rendered its verdict, leaving [TM] with limited avenues for relief,” according to the motion.
During that trial, which began in September, the 65-year-old former student — identified in court only as “T.M.” —testified that he was was sexually assaulted at age 15 at the school by the Rev. Richard Lott, a monk, former teacher and maintenance director at Delbarton. The trauma from that night “follows me around like a dark cloud,” he said.
A six-member jury agreed, delivering a unanimous verdict on Oct. 15 against Lott and the Order of St. Benedict of New Jersey, which operates the school and St. Mary’s Abbey on the Morris Township campus.
T.M.’s attorneys then urged jurors during the punitive phase of the trial to punish the school and the OSBNJ for creating “a culture of abuse and a culture of silence.” But after five hours of deliberations over two days, the same jury decided unanimously against imposing punitive damages in addition to the $5 million compensatory award.
Pattern of abuse at Delbarton?
T.M.’s lawsuit was the first to go to trial among 39 pending abuse cases against Delbarton. It was also believed to be the first clergy abuse suit involving a Catholic Church entity to reach a courtroom in New Jersey, where hundreds of other cases have been filed alleging the Church covered up violations for decades.
In the latest motion, attorneys for T.M. said they only recently “learned of the existence of previously undisclosed materials.” The Order of St. Benedict “possessed these prior to this lawsuit, and they were readily identifiable through a basic search of its own records,” the attorneys allege.
“This case was tried to verdict after nearly a decade of litigation, during which OSBNJ repeatedly represented that it had produced all responsive materials,” they continued. Their client “proceeded through discovery and trial in reliance on those representations, unaware that OSBNJ had withheld highly material documents” that were unavailable through other sources.
More: Big punitive award ‘could put us out of business,’ Delbarton chief says at sex abuse trial
The motion also identifies four documents attorney say were withheld that consist of reports of interviews conducted by the order’s private investigator, Nicholas Susalis, regarding allegations of sexual misconduct by its members.
“By withholding plainly responsive documents while representing that no such materials existed, OSBNJ deprived [T.M.] of the ability to litigate his claims on a full record and deprived the Court and the Special Discovery Adjudicator of the ability to perform their essential oversight functions,” the motion reads.
Kurt Krauss, one of several attorneys representing the Order of St. Benedict, said the organization does not comment on ongoing litigation. An attorney for Lott did not respond to a request for comment.
The defendants denied any wrongdoing throughout the trial. Lott said he was serving at a Jersey Shore church on the night T.M. says the priest assaulted him.
Story is ‘not over’
“We were wrong to think the Delbarton story was over,” said Mark Crawford, state director for the Survivor’s Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, who attended TM’s trial in Morristown. “What has emerged since the jury left the courtroom is more disturbing than what they were ever permitted to hear. And what is now in the public record raises profound questions not only about one case, but about whether survivors in New Jersey can trust the system designed to protect them.”
Opinion: The Delbarton case isn’t over. What’s surfaced is troubling
Among other penalties, the court could reopen the punitive damages phase of the trial, Crawford said.
The motion calls for the court to grant relief including delivery of the requested discovery materials, court costs and an acknowledgement that Delbarton and the order “knowingly permitted and acquiesced in T.M.’s sexual abuse” and that they “acted with malicious or wanton and willful disregard of [the student’s] rights.” It also calls on the court to “impose sanctions commensurate with OSBNJ’s discovery misconduct.”