A Chilling Shadow

NECN
January 5, 2012

www.necn.com/01/05/12/A-chilling-shadow/landing_newengland.html?blockID=625618&feedID=4206

[with video]

(NECN: Brian Burnell) - It's a story reminiscent of the Catholic Church sex abuse scandal - more than a dozen children in Haiti abused while people in charge looked the other way. Now, the Boston attorney, who spearheaded the Catholic Church sex abuse fight, is all over this one, too.

And this time, the attorney has something he did not get in the Catholic Church sex abuse scandal: a guilty plea.

Douglas Perlitz plead guilty to sexually molesting 8 boys at the Pierre Toussant School for Homeless Children in Haiti between 1998 and 2008. He is now serving nearly 20 years in federal prison.

Boston Attorney Mitchell Garabedian has filed 20 complaints in federal court seeking over $400 million on behalf of 21 children. It names not only Perlitz but the Society of Jesus which oversaw the school, Reverend Paul Carrier who was on the school's board and Fairfield University. Carrier was the chaplain at Fairfield.

"Douglas Perlitz would tell children, 'You're a street child', and they were street children," said Mitchell Garabedian, a victim's attorney. "'You don't have any food, you don't have any shelter and you don't have any clothing. If you don't let me sexually molest you I'm not going to give you food, clothing or shelter.'"

This so parallels the Catholic Church scandal: a man who holds authority abusing helpless children and these Haitian children were even more helpless.

But an attorney for Fairfield University says it is Perlitz, not the school, who is responsible, and that Reverend Carrier was not acting on behalf of Fairfield University.

The connection is between the fact that Father Carrier was the chaplain at the university," said Stan Twadry, a Fairfield University attorney. "He served on the board and there were indeed funds that were raised at the chapel services but that was separate and apart from the university."

Paul Kendrick is an advocate for victims of sexual abuse. He has met with 17 of the boys who, he says, are suffering.

"As one of the children said to me, 'I hope God forgives me for what I've done,'" said Kendrick.