Abuse Survivors Group Will Rally at Central Catholic

By Jill Harmacinski
Eagle-Tribune
April 28, 2017

http://www.eagletribune.com/news/abuse-survivors-group-will-rally-at-central-catholic/article_7d4e0406-2c47-11e7-8223-8b22466db78e.html

An international group that supports sexual abuse survivors plans to rally in front of Central Catholic High School next week after an administrator was accused of drugging and raping a student in 2006.

Andrew Nikonchuk, 36, of Lowell was fired Tuesday for violating "the school's policies pertaining to appropriate social boundaries between students and faculty."

The former Central Catholic director of curriculum and instruction was fired Tuesday after the former student, a male who graduated in 2008, reported the incident to authorities on April 20. The Middlesex County district attorney is investigating the allegations. To this point, no criminal charges have been filed.

Dr. Robert Hoatson, the leader of Road to Recovery, a nonprofit, sexual abuse recovery organization based in Livingston, New Jersey, said he received phone calls about the Central Catholic situation from other sexual abuse survivors living in the Merrimack Valley.

Hoatson said a demonstration is planned at Central Catholic at 11 a.m. Monday.

"We are coming up to support sexual abuse victims in general," Hoatson said Friday.

Since 2002, Road to Recovery has helped 4,000 sexual abuse survivors internationally, with a special emphasis on Catholic Church sexual abuse victims.

"Silence kills. The fact that they are no longer silent means they have a chance to recover," he said, lauding Nikonchuk's alleged victim for his "courage."

Hoatson was in the nearby city of Haverhill a year ago after a lawsuit was filed against the Rev. Arnold Kelley.

The suit alleged Kelley abused a boy from 1973 to 1976 when he was a priest at St. Thomas Aquinas Parish in Jamaica Plain.

Kelley was a priest at All Saints Parish in Haverhill, where he had most recently lived before moving into a nursing home.

Contact: jharmacinski@eagletribune.com