By JUDY L. THOMAS
The Kansas City Star
Jon David Couzens’ lawsuit alleges that the Catholic Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph was told repeatedly that Monsignor Thomas O’Brien was a danger to children but failed to prevent the abuse.File photo by Jill Toyoshiba/The Kansas City Star
A former altar boy took the stand Friday and disputed Jon David Couzens’ allegations of sexual abuse by Monsignor Thomas O’Brien three decades ago.
Jeff Barlow told Jackson County jurors that Couzens’ claims that O’Brien sexually abused four altar boys, including Barlow, as a group in the early 1980s at Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary Church in Independence were false.
Most notably, when asked Friday whether he knew of any instances in which O’Brien exhibited inappropriate behavior with boys, he told jurors, “Absolutely not.”
But he told The Star in a recorded interview in 2011 that he “absolutely” witnessed inappropriate behavior by O’Brien. In a second phone call, he said O’Brien was a “pedophile” and a “sicko,” and that it was very possible O’Brien could have done something to Couzens and another altar boy.
Barlow also took The Star to task in court, saying stories it published in 2011 about the altar boys angered him, although he said in a phone call after publication that it was a “fine story.”
The account of Couzens and the other altar boys was told in a three-day series called “The Altar Boys’ Secret.”
One of the boys, 14-year-old Brian Teeman, died of a gunshot wound at his home in November 1983. His parents, Don and Rosemary Teeman, filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against the Catholic Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph in September 2011 after Couzens told them of the alleged abuse. Their lawsuit contended that Brian took his life because of repeated sexual abuse by O’Brien.
“With God as my witness and without a doubt,” Barlow told jurors on the 10th day of a high-profile trial involving a civil suit filed by Couzens, “I was never abused.”
However, some of Barlow’s testimony Friday in response to other questions contradicted what he told The Kansas City Star in two recorded phone calls three years ago.
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