By David Staba
The New York Times
August 23, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/23/nyregion/23abuse.html?_r=1&ref=nyregion&oref=slogin
Niagara Falls, N.Y., Aug. 22 — For nearly two years, students at St. Dominic Savio Middle School here — particularly the girls — referred to Christian Butler, a part-time computer teacher, as "the Perv."
Mr. Butler began earning that nickname shortly after the school opened in 2002, frequently making lewd comments in class and, in a one-on-one encounter, coarsely complimenting a pre-teen girl on her body, according to court records and interviews with his former students, their parents and a co-worker.
Students turned on the laptop computers assigned to them to find pornography, both live and animated. At least twice, students said, Mr. Butler projected crude images, including one of two topless women wrestling in mud, onto walls during class.
He was sentenced on Wednesday to four years in prison for violating probation requirements stemming from his 2005 guilty plea on charges of possessing child pornography and endangering the welfare of a minor. At the same time, two families of his victims are filing a lawsuit against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Buffalo seeking $1.5 million and an apology, claiming that school and church officials ignored repeated complaints about Mr. Butler until a former student alerted the police in June 2004.
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| Christian Butler leaving court. Photo by Doug Benz |
"What did they do when this behavior was repeated for two years?" asked one of the plaintiffs, Remi Gonzalez, a director for the Niagara Falls Catholic Youth Council, a Eucharistic minister and the father of one of the girls. "They did nothing and made these kids live with a sexual predator."
The case has drawn particular ire from victims' advocates because the school opened three months after the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops approved its Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People at a meeting in Dallas, which mandated a zero-tolerance policy on sexual abuse. It required that church institutions "have mechanisms in place to respond promptly to any allegation where there is reason to believe that sexual abuse of a minor has occurred," and to "report an allegation of sexual abuse of a person who is a minor to the public authorities."
David Clohessy, spokesman for the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said the failure of church officials to act quickly on complaints about Mr. Butler was "especially egregious in both time and place."
"If ever these promises should be honored, it was in the immediate wake of Dallas and in a school setting," Mr. Clohessy said. "One shouldn't, but might, tolerate some backsliding or carelessness decades after these promises were made, but certainly not just months after."
Kevin A. Keenan, a spokesman for the Diocese of Buffalo, declined to comment on the case, but said: "We followed our diocesan policy, which is modeled on the Dallas charter. We take these complaints very seriously."
A code of conduct signed by all employees and volunteers in the Buffalo diocese forbids "physical conduct, conversations and other communications with children or young adults that have a sexual purpose or result" and requires the reporting of any such allegation to church officials and, when appropriate, the police.
When Mr. Butler was arrested in June 2004, he was charged with running his hand up one girl's uniform skirt, over her thigh to her underwear, verbally harassing another, and having on his computer images of children engaged in sex acts. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced by Judge Peter L. Broderick of Niagara County Court to six months in prison, to be followed by 10 years of probation.
In June, Mr. Butler admitted violating the terms of his probation by viewing adult pornography on his computer. At the sentencing on Wednesday, Judge Broderick scolded him, saying, "I stuck my neck out for you."
"The enormity of what you have done to the school, the kids, the families — they all wanted your scalp," the judge noted. "I didn't do that. I gave you a chance to change your ways and convince me that you could control your impulses. You let me down and you let yourself down."
Mr. Gonzalez's daughter, who spoke on the condition that her first name not be published, said she began feeling uncomfortable around Mr. Butler shortly after the 2002-3 school year began.
"He looked at us inappropriately, reached around us, leaned over us," recalled Miss Gonzalez, who is now 15.
Midway through that school year, according to the police report, an eighth-grade girl told school officials that Mr. Butler had made a crude comment about her body, and he admitted it during a meeting with her parents and the school's principal, Patricia M. Muscatello.
Soon after, according to interviews, the same girl said that Mr. Butler had chased her in an empty cafeteria after school and was pulling at her cheerleader's uniform when a teacher intervened.
Virginia Abbott, who taught Spanish at the school but quit shortly before Mr. Butler's arrest, citing the administration's failure to follow up on complaints about him and curtail students' violent behavior, said in a recent interview that she repeatedly spoke to the principal, Ms. Muscatello, about Mr. Butler.
"I told her what was going on at least 20 times," Ms. Abbott said. "Whenever I went to speak to her, she would laugh it off and say, 'Oh, those girls — Christian is harmless.' "
Ms. Muscatello, who resigned as principal in July 2004, declined to discuss particulars of the situation, but said in an interview: "These allegations are categorically untrue. Appropriate actions were taken when situations were brought to my attention."
She would not say whether Mr. Butler had been disciplined before his arrest.
A classmate and friend of Miss Gonzalez's, who also spoke on the condition of anonymity and whose family is suing the diocese, said in an interview that Mr. Butler told her one day that her regular computer was not working, so she would have to use the computer next to him.
"I felt weird going to sit next to him, so I just kept complete eye contact with my friends, kind of like, 'If anything happens, save me,' " she said. "I sat there and he put his hand on my legs and I felt him put his hand up my skirt and then on my underwear. I got up and left."
The girl, who was 12 at the time, said that she told Ms. Muscatello what had happened.
"She said that if she got another complaint, she would do something about it," said the girl, now 16. "I was like, 'Isn't she supposed to say something? Isn't she supposed to help this go away?' "
Several months later, Miss Gonzalez said, she had her own encounter with Mr. Butler after requesting permission to use the bathroom.
"He pulled out his chair and said, 'Just cross your legs and go like this,' and he rocked back and forth," she recalled. "I said, 'I'm not doing that,' and I ran out of the room."Mr. Butler was placed on leave in June 2004, after the police were notified; he was arrested later that month.
The girls said in interviews that they did not tell their parents about Mr. Butler's conduct before the police investigation began, in part because their earlier complaints had been ignored by school officials.
"I felt like it was my fault," said Miss Gonzalez's friend, who said she had received counseling after having panic attacks and suicidal thoughts. "I blamed myself for it and I thought if I told them, they would have gotten mad and blamed me for what happened. Every day, walking past him, I felt like it was my fault."
She said the ordeal was the main reason she enrolled at the public high school in Niagara Falls rather than continue in Catholic schools.
"You're supposed to feel safe at school, you're supposed to trust your teachers," she said. "Nothing is ever supposed to go wrong at a Catholic school — it's like God is watching over you, so nothing bad is supposed to happen."
Miss Gonzalez stayed in parochial schools, but said she was wary of authority figures.
"It's not that I can't trust them, it's, 'Who is going to do something next?' " she said. "Who is the next Mr. Butler?"
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