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	Religious Order Says Time Ran out for Abuse Victim By Virginia Young St. Louis Post-Dispatch February 29, 2008 http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/missouristatenews/story/C87C9B669F1D1199862573FE001506BF?OpenDocument JEFFERSON CITY — Robert Visnaw says he never forgot the secret psychology "experiments" conducted by Brother William "Bill" Mueller when Visnaw was a senior at Vianney High School in Kirkwood. Visnaw alleges in court documents that in one incident in 1985, Mueller told him to strip down to his underwear, blindfolded him, held a knife to his throat and made him hyperventilate to the point of unconsciousness. What Visnaw didn't remember for many years was the sexual abuse that went along with the experiments, he says. That memory surfaced in 2005, he says, when he read a Post-Dispatch article recounting other allegations against Mueller. The question now before the Missouri Supreme Court: Can a man who claims a repressed memory of abuse pursue damages 22 years later? Attorneys for both sides said Thursday that the point at which Visnaw recognized his injuries is the key. They differed on when that occurred. Normally, under Missouri law, a person filing childhood claims of sexual abuse has five years from the date of turning 21 to do so. But state law allows for delayed claims in some cases. In 2006, in Powel v. Chaminade, the high court said judges should take into account not only when a plaintiff recalled the alleged abuse but when a reasonable person would have recognized that harm resulted. Visnaw, who now lives in suburban Kansas City, argues that the clock started running for him in 2005, when counseling helped him recover his memories of abuse. He filed a civil lawsuit against the Marianists, the religious order that runs the high school, in 2006. The Marianists are trying to get Visnaw's suit dismissed. They contend the filing deadline passed in 1993, five years after he turned 21. Their argument rests on the fact that Visnaw has always remembered being stripped, blindfolded and held with a knife. "By any objective standard, he had knowledge" of his injuries, Gerard Noce of St. Louis, the religious order's attorney, told the court. "Those were all actionable causes at that time and until he turned 26." That point seemed to find support from Chief Justice Laura Denvir Stith, who said that Visnaw knew he was assaulted, "whether it has a sexual component or not." But Visnaw's attorney, Daniel Craig of Kansas City, said Mueller was Visnaw's trusted adviser and religious mentor. Visnaw and other abused students believed they were participating in a project studying the psychology of fear, Craig said. "They were told prior to this happening 'I'm going to test you.' They believed it. It didn't occur with a complete stranger grabbing him off the street, " Craig said. Visnaw, who is now 40, attended the court arguments. He declined to comment afterward, on advice of his attorney. David Clohessy, national director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said he was disappointed with the Marianists' legal strategy. "It's tragic that alleged spiritual leaders try to exploit legal technicalities like the statute of limitations to evade responsibility for a known predator's crimes," he said. "It would be shocking if just once, the church fought on the merits of a child sex abuse lawsuit instead of trying to exploit loopholes and deadlines to dodge their duty and obscure the truth." The case is one of 27 suits in Missouri and Colorado alleging abuse by Mueller. The Marianists settled one of the suits, brought by Bryan Bacon, last year for $160,000. Vianney fired Mueller in 1985 after the father of two students accused Mueller of "kinky" but nonsexual behavior. Mueller withdrew from the religious order and was officially released in 1986. In an interview in 2005, Mueller, who by then had moved to Texas, acknowledged performing psychological experiments but denied there was anything sexual. Contact: vyoung@post-dispatch.com | 573-635-6178
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