July 26, 2005

Breaking his long silence

MINTURN (CO)
Denver Post

By Eric Gorski
Denver Post Staff Writer

Minturn - He is 49 years old now, with thinning hair, a goatee and an art career on the West Coast. But a drive through the town where he grew up brings childhood back to Brandon Trask: picking blueberries by the river, Sunday Mass at the old yellow church, the priest who lived across the street and touched him like a priest shouldn't.

In the early 1970s, when he was in his early teens, Trask said, the Rev. Harold Robert White invited him to the famous mineral pool in Glenwood Springs.

The boy figured it was a group outing. But driving off in the priest's black Mustang, it was just the two of them.

In the chest-deep water, Trask alleged, the priest reached into his swim trunks and molested him, holding the boy back when he tried to swim away.

Returning that night to this Eagle County town, White led the boy into his bedroom in the church rectory and molested him again, Trask alleged.

Posted by kshaw at July 26, 2005 07:25 AM