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	Part 4: McAllister Describes Life after Settlement over Abuse Claims By Nate Birt Boonville Daily News September 3, 2009 |Part 1| Part 2| Part 3| An altered faith Mark McAllister of Roanoke, Va., said Aug. 21 that he still believes in God, just not the one given to him by the Catholic church. "The God of my understanding views children as sacred," McAllister said. "The church has done nothing to promote that philosophy, as I see it." McAllister claims that a priest, Gerald Howard, sexually abused him between 1983 and 1988, while he was an attendee of Ss. Peter and Paul parish in Boonville. In July, McAllister was awarded a $600,000 settlement in connection with those claims. McAllister now has a son, Zachary, and he said he didn't go public with his story to paint himself as a victim, even though he claims his encounters with Howard contributed to his abuse of drugs for much of his adult life. McAllister knows he's made mistakes. While he would prefer not to discuss them, McAllister said, they are part of his past. Rather, McAllister said, he went public with his story for two reasons. First, he said, he wants parents to be careful. "Protect your children," McAllister said. "If it looks suspicious, it probably is." Second, McAllister said, he would encourage others to "vote with your feet" over the decisions he claims some Catholic authorities have made. "I'm not suggesting anyone denounce their faith or give up the practice of religion, but you're certainly more than free to do it somewhere else," McAllister said. Without that, he said, the church won't change. Mediation and frustration McAllister said he left the meeting at which he was awarded the $600,000 settlement more angry than he had been when it began. The meeting developed out of a series of events that McAllister said led him to remember his teenage years in Boonville. Twenty years after his last encounter with Howard, McAllister said, he began having nightmares and flashbacks that included vivid details of meetings between the two. At first, he said, he was in disbelief. Only later, upon discussing what he was seeing, McAllister said, did a therapist label what he was describing as abuse. He recounted his experiences to his parents in January 2008, McAllister said. In the weeks that followed, McAllister said, his parents began making contact with the Diocese of Jefferson City and the Archdiocese of Newark. McAllister said his treatments were more expensive than his family could afford, and that he had heard the Catholic church would pay for the treatment of those abused by clergy. McAllister said that he has been in residential in-patient treatment on two occasions and that he has been active in 12-step recovery programs for a long time. McAllister claims that representatives of both the Diocese of Jefferson City and the Archdiocese of Newark initially indicated that they had never heard of Howard, formerly known as Carmine Sita. But he said that representatives later acknowledged that the priest had worked with their locations but that he had since been removed from his duties. Jim Goodness, a spokesman for the Archdiocese of Newark, told the BDN earlier this month that Sita was ordained as a priest in 1976 and worked at a parish in Jersey City, N.J., for six years. Court documents show Sita pleaded guilty to second-degree sexual assault in 1982. After that, Goodness has said, Sita "stepped down from ministry" and was required to enroll in a New Mexico treatment facility operated by the Servants of the Paraclete. The Diocese of Jefferson City stated in an Aug. 13, 2009, news release that Howard was then assigned to Ss. Peter and Paul in Boonville as an associate pastor by Bishop Michael McAuliffe. That news release also made reference to McAllister's case, stating that: "In March of 2008, the Diocese was contacted by parents of the victim, informing us of the allegation of abuse. The Diocese offered to meet with the victim and provided support to him for treatment. The victim would not meet with diocesan representatives but contact was maintained with him and his family over the ensuing months." In the spring of 2009, the Aug. 13 news release states, "the individual and his legal counsel requested mediation of the complaint without filing a lawsuit." A mediation was held on June 19, according to that news release. Before that meeting, McAllister said, both his attorneys and representatives of three entities - the Archdiocese of Newark, the Diocese of Jefferson City and the Servants of the Paraclete - had agreed to give him and 10 members of his family the opportunity to voice their frustrations. He said that while the meeting happened, it didn't go as he had expected. Bryan Bacon, a Columbia attorney who represented McAllister, said such pre-mediation meetings are often standard practice. Bacon said in attendance at that meeting were Ronald Vessell, associate to the chancellor of the Diocese of Jefferson City, and the diocese's attorney; the in-house counsel for the Archdiocese of New Jersey; and an attorney and a priest representing the Servants of the Paraclete. The mediation followed, McAllister said, and he said he thinks it lasted 14 hours. McAllister said it seemed that attorneys representing the Archdiocese of Newark, the Diocese of Jefferson City and the Servants of the Paraclete weren't interested in his claims of sexual abuse, McAllister said. In his opinion, he said, they took shots at his character and questioned him about things that had been mentioned in treatment notes about him. "They fought us for every nickel and dime," McAllister said. McAllister said that he and his attorneys sought but failed to win a seven-figure settlement and such noneconomic demands as the opportunity to publicly release information from Howard's personnel files. After the meeting ended, McAllister took offense, and said the attorneys had the gall to shake his hand. "That whole process is slanted toward their side," McAllister said. Charles M. Carella, an attorney for the Archdiocese of Newark, declined on the afternoon of Aug. 26 to comment about the mediation meeting. Bernard Huger, an attorney representing the Diocese of Jefferson City, said Aug. 26 that he would not be able to discuss the mediation meeting because the mediation process is considered confidential. A voicemail seeking comment from Jeffrey Jones, an attorney representing the Servants of the Paraclete, had not been returned as of the morning of Aug. 27. Parties to the settlement signed off on it in July, Bacon said. A copy of the settlement provided to the BDN by the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests states that the Archdiocese of Newark and the Diocese of Jefferson City agreed to pay $225,000 of the settlement sum, and that the Servants of the Paraclete agreed to pay $150,000 of that sum. Bacon has previously told the BDN that the Archdiocese of Newark, where Howard began work as a priest, agreed to begin defrocking Howard as part of the settlement. McAllister said he recalls being told that process could take up to six years. Ken Chackes, another attorney who represented McAllister, said that while mediations are generally expected to be confidential, there is normally an understanding among the parties involved that the client bringing the claims isn't bound by that. He said that while he doesn't recall hearing that the defrocking process could take up to six years, he has known of cases where the process took a "pretty long time." Bacon said he thinks that if McAllister had pursued a lawsuit, attorneys for the Archdiocese of Newark and the Diocese of Jefferson City would have argued that the civil statute of limitations had expired. In a civil case, he said, attorneys must prove that damages were sustained and that a person was in a position to "reasonably ascertain" that he or she was substantially damaged. Because McAllister claims he was abused at a young age, Bacon said, he thinks attorneys likely would have argued that McAllister could have known he was being abused and pursued a lawsuit at that time. Bacon said that in his opinion, though, "the criminal statute of limitations almost certainly hasn't expired yet" according to Missouri law. He said that's because there is no statute of limitations in Missouri for a Class A felony. Bacon said that in his opinion, some of Howard's conduct in the 1980s, as described by McAllister, would constitute a Class A felony. A new chapter McAllister said that he feels that he has a fighting chance of becoming a successful human being again. Until the news of his abuse allegations came out, he said, he doesn't think that chance existed. "My No. 1 goal right now," McAllister said, "is to ensure that he cannot do this to another child." McAllister said he shudders at the thought of his son, Zachary, having to endure what McAllister claims he experienced at a young age. He said that while he initially experienced some ambivalence about whether to pursue a settlement, he ultimately decided in favor of one because, he said, he thinks church officials repeatedly thwarted his family's efforts to seek the truth. McAllister said he wants to encourage others who may have been victimized by anybody in the past to gain strength by coming forward. "It's a very difficult process, but it's very healing at the same time," McAllister said. Life today, McAllister said, is dramatically different than what it used to be. He attends a 12-step program every day, he said, and has lost some of his fear of men. It's hard to put a finger on how some of his recovery happened, McAllister said. But he said he isn't discounting the possibility that embracing his concept of a higher power may have been at work. "I don't know what's working," McAllister said, "but it's working, and I ain't going to change that."
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