TAMPA (FL)
St. Petersburg Times
By SAUNDRA AMRHEIN, Times Staff Writer
Published August 11, 2005
TAMPA - Joining a string of other allegations in three years against Tampa's Mary Help of Christians School, a former student sued the school Wednesday, saying he was sexually abused by two Salesian brothers while he was a seventh-grader in 1982.
The suit is the sixth since 2002 accusing a priest or teacher at the school of sexually molesting a boy in his care.
The school at 6400 E Chelsea St., which stopped housing residential students in 1996 and became coed in 2000, is run by the Salesians of Don Bosco religious order. The order is devoted to helping children, especially the poor and disadvantaged, according to its Web site.
The suit says that the plaintiff, born in 1969, was enrolled at the Catholic boarding school as a seventh-grader in 1982 because he had failed seventh grade at his other school. His mother, the suit says, hoped the Salesians who operated Mary Help of Christians School could help instill the discipline and structure the victim needed at that point in his life.