The Worthy Adversary

Author: Joelle Casteix

  • New Allegations of Abuse Against Bakersfield Foursquare Church

    NEWS EVENT: New sex abuse and cover-up lawsuit filed against Bakersfield church

     

    Youth minister admitted to molesting girls

     

    Yet church officials refused to report crimes to police

     

    To keep victim quiet, they told family “get church counseling”

     

    Group says “Come forward, report abuse, get help & call police”

    What: Holding signs and childhood photos at a sidewalk news conference, child sex abuse victims and their supporters will announce a new sex abuse and cover-up lawsuit against a Bakersfield church. The lawsuit says that:

    — A youth minister sexually molested a girl,

    — He admitted to church officials that he abused girls,

    — He kept working at this church – and others – for years after, and

    — Church employees didn’t report the abuse and told the family to seek church counseling instead.

    Where: Outside of Kern County Superior Court, 1415 Truxtun Avenue (corner of Truxtun and Chester) in Bakersfield

    When: Tuesday, May 29 at 11:15 am

    Who: Victims of child sex abuse who are members of a support group called SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAPnetwork.org), including a California woman who is the group’s Western Regional Director.  THE VICTIM WILL BE THERE AND WILL SPEAK PUBLICLY.

    Why: Today in Kern County Superior Court, a 29-year-old child sex abuse victim at the Bakersfield Day Spring Foursquare Church filed a sex abuse and cover-up lawsuit against the church and Damon Young, the youth minister who admitted to molesting her and other girls at the church.

    The lawsuit says that Young repeatedly sexually molested the victim, Jessica Bohman, from 1987 to 1990 when Jessica was between 4 and 8 years old. When Bohman reported the abuse to the church in 1997, Young admitted to Foursquare officials that he abused Bohman and other young girls in his care.

    Bohman and her family say that when they told Foursquare officials about the abuse, they were told to seek church counseling and not call the police. The church also refused to report the abuse to law enforcement, as required by law. Despite admitting the abuse, Young was permitted to keep his church job and church officials didn’t warn parents. In 2000, when Bohman’s family members learned that Young was still working with children, they again reported the abuse to church officials, who did nothing to warn families of the danger.

    Bohman reported her abuse to law enforcement in 2010. Although Young admitted to molesting her, he served no jail time because he was 14 at the time the abuse occurred.

    Because Foursquare church officials chose to protect an admitted predator and never reported to law enforcement, SNAP fears that the others hurt by Young may be suffering alone in shame and silence. They also believe that this pattern of cover-up and deliberate failure to report may have allowed child sex abuse to continue and thrive at Foursquare churches throughout the county. They also hope that other victims will find the strength to come forward and report to law enforcement.

    Jessica Bohman is represented by Los Angeles attorney Anthony DeMarco (310) 927-9277, anthony@demarcolawfirm.com.  Copies of the lawsuit will be available at the event.

    Contact: Joelle Casteix of Newport Beach, CA, SNAP Western Regional Director, 949-322-7434, jcasteix@gmail.com

    Barb Dorris of St. Louis, MO, SNAP Outreach Director, 314-503-0003, snapdorris@gmail.com

    David Clohessy of St. Louis, SNAP Executive Director, 314-566-9790, snapclohessy@aol.com

     

  • Talking to teens about abuse? Check your panic at the door

     

    Talking to your teen about sexual abuse? Don’t worry. Just take a deep breath and keep reading.

    If your kids are younger, start here.

    Usually, teen victims will reach out to their peers—friends who have no training, few skills and lack the maturity to properly report the abuse to the cops and get the victim help. Many times, the victim will swear the friend to secrecy. The friend, seeing how the victim has already been hurt and betrayed, will readily keep the secret. If the abuser is a teacher of someone the friend knows, the peer will keep the secret out of fear.

    It’s a lose-lose: We have another teen who is suffering from vicarious trauma, fear and stress because they are forced to “keep the secret.” This happened in my own case, and the long-term wounds that many of my high school classmates suffered were just as deep and long-lasting as my own. Teen victims are also more likely to be blamed for the abuse (“Why did you keep going back?” “Why didn’t you just punch the guy?” “You must have wanted it.”), so the lifetime effects of the abuse can be more debilitating and shameful for everyone involved.

    You’re a parent of a teenager. What the hell do you do now?

    First, think about your goal: You want your kid to come to YOU immediately when something shameful, scary, confusing, and painful happens to them or one of their friends.

    How do we accomplish the goal?

    1) Check your panic at the door. Did you hear me? I’ll say it again: CHECK YOUR PANIC AT THE DOOR! Are you the parent who reads about all of the “teen drug trends” on the internet and goes to bed at night sweating with fear? Do you wag your finger at your teens and tell them they have no idea who is lurking on the internet? Do you tell them that it was NEVER this bad when you were young?

    Well, you’re lying. You’re only panicking because you’re old.

    Did your teenager roll his eyes at you and shut down? Of course, because you were being a dork. Don’t a dork. Teenagers eat dorks for breakfast.

    Truth be told, our kids are drinking less, doing less drugs and engaging in less risker behaviors than they were in the 1970s and 1980s. (I went to high school in the 1980s. Alcohol, drugs and sex were everywhere. My husband’s Irvine High 1980 yearbook class photo sported a four-foot joint. My dad tells stories about his fraternity years—1956-1960— that gross me out.)

    2) Sit down with your teen and ask them open-ended, non-threatening questions. Ask them because you are genuinely interested in them and their lives. Ask them what happens at school. Ask them what they see. They may not open up the first time, but slowly, they’ll start telling you. If they ask you if you drank in high school and you did, tell them the truth (but don’t follow it with “but you had better not”). Chances are that your kid will respect you more for telling the truth and open up to you if they have questions.

    A great conversation opener may be saying that you remember how hard it was to be a teenager (You couldn’t pay me enough to go back) and you just want to make sure things are okay.

    Ask them if they know anyone at school who has been sexually abused. (You can tell them that adults being sexual with teens is never okay). Ask them if they are carrying secrets for themselves or someone else. Ask them about their friends. Ask them about who is dating whom. Then let it go. They’ll remember.

    3) Don’t be judgmental. Don’t be embarrassed. Don’t lecture. Don’t interrupt. Don’t lie.

    4) Whatever you do, don’t fly off the handle. Make this a general rule and follow it. You can still be a parent and have rules and command respect without yelling and screaming at the drop of a hat. Make it safe for your kid to come to you. Even though your teen will deny it to the moon and back, he wants you to be a safe haven. She wants you to care. They want you to help take care of their problems.

    5) Educate yourself on reporting and support. Get the phone numbers for local law enforcement and keep them handy. Call the police desk sergeant and ask him/her the best way to report abuse in your local area. Get the brochure and the phone number for the state mandatory reporting hotline and share it with every mandatory reporter you know. Find out the local rape crisis hotline. You may never need this information. But if you do, or if someone else you know does, you will be able to help immediately and effectively.

    It’s not rocket science, as long as you keep your wits about you. Save the panic for the day your kid gets his drivers licence.

    Have you had success/failure/frustration talking to your teen about sexual abuse? I’d love to hear …

     

  • Vatican Bank Scandal got you confused? Not any more …

    Interested in figuring out the Vatican Bank Scandal? Jason Berry’s Render Unto Rome is available for the Kindle. If you prefer, here is the Old School hardback.

    Don’t forget: the Pope’s butler has been criminally charged in the Vatican court for leaking documents. Who knows what he knows?

     

     

  • Altarcations debuts at the Hollywood Fringe Festival

    “A bishop. A priest. A woman. A boy.”

    My friend Steve Julian‘s play Altarcations will debut in June at the 2012 Hollywood Fringe Festival. I met Steve (whom some of you may recognize as the morning host of KPCC‘s Morning Edition) after I “outed” one of his former high school teachers as an admitted perpetrator in the New York Times. When he told me about this play, I flipped (in a very good way). I’ve been lucky enough to see early drafts and talk to him about the progression of the play and the growth of the characters.

    It’s going to be an amazing production.

    Then I found out the play had been accepting into the Hollywood Fringe Festival. I flipped again.

    The play runs from June 8 to 14 24 at The Actors Circle Theater. Tickets are a VERY AFFORDABLE $10 to $15. You need to go. And then you need to tell your friends to go. You can buy tickets here.

    You can also donate to help offset the cost of the production through the Pasadena Arts Council EMERGE Fiscal Sponsorship Program. We all know that ticket sales alone do very little to help offset the costs of producing a play. An added plus: all donations are tax deductible. When you donate, you will sleep better at night and like yourself more, knowing that you contributed to the growth of live theater in Los Angeles.

     

  • **UPDATED**FIRST HAWAII LAWSUIT FILED** Gerald Funcheon: A missing priest appears ….

    The first lawsuit under Hawaii’s landmark civil window was filed yesterday in Hawaii Circuit Court.

    The lawsuit (posted here) charges that Fr. Gerald Funcheon sexually abused a 13-year-old boy at Damien Memorial School in 1983/1984 during an overnight retreat on the eastern shore of Oahu. Considering Funcheon’s history (you can read some of the documents here), we can only assume that there may be more victims in Hawaii who are suffering.

    Besides exposing predators and keeping kids safe, the beauty of the anti-crime civil window is that the responsible parties are forced to be accountable for the harm they did to child victims and take some of the financial burden for victims’ care off of state coffers and taxpayers. The civil window provides an opportunity put that burden back onto the abusers and enablers, where it belongs.

    Similar laws in California and Delaware have exposed hundreds of predators and helped law enforcement put child molesters behind bars.

    Funcheon has also been accused of sexual abuse by two former students at Salinas’ Palma School, Chris Spedden and Steven Cantrell. Cantrell, a Monterey-area doctor, wrote an open letter to Palma and the community about the importance of coming forward and reporting sexual abuse. Both Spedden and Cantrell came forward as a part of the Irish Christian Brothers’ bankruptcy. The Brothers run Damien and Palma, as well as other schools across the United States

    Spedden, Cantrell and the victim in Hawaii are heroes.  Were it not for them, Hawaii and California would never have known about the predator dumped in their schools.

     

    ****************************************

    Original post: March 15, 2012

    Every once in a while, the stars align.

    Last year, I was contacted by family members of a child sex abuse victim. They asked me if I had any information about a priest named Gerald Funcheon who worked at Damien Memorial High School in Honolulu. I had never heard of Funcheon, but a quick search showed that he had a nasty past.

    Not only was the Crosier priest banned from the Diocese of Indianapolis, but there were numerous sex abuse lawsuits against him from his time in the midwest. And then Funcheon vanishes: he disappeared from the Official Catholic Directory in the early 1980s. There is really only one reason why a living priest would vanish from the Official Directory. He was probably in hiding.

    I told the family that I couldn’t find any information about Funcheon in Hawaii, but to keep in touch.

    A few months later, the Irish Christian Brothers based out of New York declared bankruptcy because of more than 50 allegations of abuse at one of their Seattle schools and more than 250 allegations of abuse at Mt. Cashel Orphanage in Newfoundland. They are the 10th Catholic diocese or religious order to seek bankruptcy protection due to sex abuse claims.

    When a religious order or diocese declares bankruptcy because of child sex abuse, the court will order a “bar date,” that is, a deadline for ALL victims to come forward and use the bankruptcy court to “out” their perpetrator and file a claim. This is a good thing and a bad thing.

    It’s good because it opens a window for victims who couldn’t come forward before because their statutes of limitations had run out. It allows potentially hundreds of victims to use the court system to get justice and do what they can to ensure that what happened to them doesn’t happen to another child.

    It’s bad because the window is only open for a very short period of time. After the deadline, many victims lose the ability to use the civil justice system forever.

    In the case of the Irish Christian Brothers, getting the word out is tough.  They run or ran dozens of schools across the United States. Many well known perpetrators (like Thomas Ford, who was convicted of beating abandoned children, and Robert Brouillette, who was convicted of child pornography after being arrested in a police sting for attempting to meet a child he had lured on the internet) worked in seven or eight of the schools. Many of the brothers sailed under the radar and were never listed in diocese directories.

    But yearbooks never lie.

    I decided to go to Honolulu (I know, it was a tough decision) and do a press event to garner attention about the bankruptcy. While many alumni at the school were scheduled to receive letters telling them that they may have rights, I knew that there was going to be no publicity about perpetrators that worked at the school.

    I got copies of the Damien yearbooks from the Honolulu public library (because of a super-dooper friend who shall remain nameless) and we started comparing faculty to known, admitted, or convicted predators. And guess who we found? Thomas Ford and Robert Brouillette (our two arrested and convicted Christian Brothers) and … Gerald Funcheon. He worked at the school for two years (1983-1985), right after he escaped allegations of abuse in Florida, Indiana and Minnesota.

    We got all three men in the news.

    But there’s more.

    Not only did we find Funcheon in the Damien yearbooks, but we also found him in Palma School yearbooks. Palma, which is a Catholic all-boys school in Salinas, CA, was where Funcheon was “dumped” in 1984 after parents in Hawaii complained that Funcheon was possibly molesting kids. Two victims from Funcheon’s time in Palma have now come forward.

    I kept in touch with the family in Hawaii. They now know that their son has legal rights. They also have photographic evidence that Funcheon worked at Damien.

    And the Irish Christian Brothers? I fear we will uncover a cover-up scandal where Irish Christian Brothers officials knowingly shuffled child predators from school to school and destroyed hundreds of children across the country.