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	False Assault Charges Unlikely, Expert Says By Louis Medina Bakersfield Californian September 21, 2007 http://www.bakersfield.com/102/story/242642.html The 54-year-old Fresno man who says he was sexually abused as a child in Bakersfield by Orange County Bishop Tod Brown has stated he once thought he had imagined the alleged abuse. In a July 1997 letter addressed simply to "Bishop, Diocese of Fresno," some 32 years after the alleged abuse, Scott C. Hicks, stated that "I have been in psychological counseling for several years related to childhood sexual abuse issues and have only recently come to the realization that the abuse perpetrated on me by Father Brown was not a fantasy, but a detailed memory." Brown, in statements made recently in a deposition in Orange County concerning a separate allegation of child sex abuse that does not involve him, acknowledged that he knew of Hicks' accusations and that he taught catechism at Bakersfield's Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church, where Hicks said the abuse took place in the 1960s. But Brown has denied Hicks' claims. Deanna Cloud, who oversees a sexual abuse treatment program for juveniles within the Kern County Mental Health Department and previously was a supervisor of the department's forensics division which treats adults who have committed sexual offenses, said people do not tend to make sexual abuse allegations lightly. "People can lie about sexual abuse but it's not extremely common because for someone to even talk about sexual abuse, to talk about being sodomized or have oral sex is very embarrassing." Hicks' letter to the Fresno bishop says he was "sexually molested" when he was 12 years old (his attorneys said last week the abuse happened when Hicks was 10). Hicks, who is married and the father of a 23-year-old and a 19-year-old, told The Californian by phone that Brown made him perform oral sex on him once and sodomized him on another occasion. There was apparently a third instance of abuse, according to Hicks, but he said he "blanked out." Cloud said it is not uncommon for some children to erase such memories. "Young children block out memories that are traumatic to them," she said. "Not all (children), but some." When sexual abuse does occur, she said, "It's more common for people to keep sexual abuse a secret than it is to tell about it." She also said, "It's more common that people tell later than at the time when it occurs, especially when they have become adults and are more confident, less vulnerable. "As a child, safety is an issue, too," Cloud said. "You feel afraid that people won't believe you. Sometimes you don't even understand," she said, for a very important reason: "Usually sexual abuse comes from somebody you know, not from a stranger. So it's confusing for someone you trust to have done this to you." In his 1997 letter to the Fresno diocese, Hicks stated that he was coming forward out of concern for other alleged potential victims of Brown, who served at Our Lady of Perpetual Help from around May 1963 to Oct. 1967, according to the the church's current pastor, Monsignor Michael R. Braun. Braun said that was Brown's first assignment upon ordination. The Fresno Diocese concluded an investigation and wrote back to Hicks about three months after receiving his letter. "In regards to (Brown), no records of inappropriate behavior have been found from the time of his ordination to the present day, with the exception of your statements in your July 1997 letter," the response said. No other charges are known to exist against Brown. Representatives of the Bakersfield Police Department and the Kern County Sheriff's Department said they have not received any allegations against Brown from community members since The Californian's recent publication of several articles on the alleged abuse, authorities confirmed. Cloud said it is unusual for a sex offender to abruptly stop his or her behavior. "Most of us will not do that, so if you cross that line, it's very common that they'll do that again." Hicks says another man, a church layman, also sexually abused him around the same time as Brown, and that a second layman photographed the abuse. Cloud said child sexual abuse committed by more than one perpetrator at the same time is rare. "Certainly those sorts of things have happened but it's much less common," she said. "To do that with other adults you're really having to trust that this other adult is not going to tell."
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