Hodge Calls Sexual Abuse Suit a "Lie"
By Ellen Meder
Former Fourth Circuit Solicitor Jay Hodge said Tuesday that a sexual abuse lawsuit filed against him by two Cheraw residents contains “lies” and is an attack based on a personal vendetta. “The parents who’ve entrusted their children to me for 35 years will know that this is a lie,” Hodge said. “Once the names of these two alleged victims are revealed, then many other people who don’t know me will also know it’s a lie.” The two men who brought the suit against the Boy Scouts of America, the Pee Dee Area Council Boy Scouts of America, First Presbyterian Church of Cheraw, Hodge and the estate of William C. Hebard, allege that they were the victims of past sexual abuse while in the care of Hodge and Hebard, adult scout leaders with Troop 663, which is sponsored by First Presbyterian Church of Cheraw. The suit, filed in Chesterfield County Court, alleges that Hodge and the now deceased Hebard engaged in various sexual acts with two unnamed plaintiffs between 1975 and 1980. The plaintiffs are brothers who are now about 47 and 48 years old and still live in the Cheraw area. And Hodge does know at least one of them. He’s involved in ongoing litigation with that plaintiff through an action that began before the February evaluation that named him as an abuser, but which was filed afterwards. It’s that litigation that prompted Hodge to suggest the sexual abuse lawsuit was retaliatory. In an interview Tuesday, Hodge insinuated that the “traumatic amnesia” of the plaintiffs – they have just remembered the abuse while in counseling that began this year -- is suspect. Attorney Trey Cockrell of Cockrell Law Firm in Chesterfield, who filed the suit on behalf of the plaintiffs, said he is disturbed and offended to hear that Hodge has issued a blanket denial of the allegations and is accusing his clients of fabricating the events. He said the plaintiffs filed a civil suit because they didn’t think anyone in Chesterfield County would pay attention if they came forward with potential charges against a man with the kind of ties to the law enforcement community that Hodge has. “I don’t believe they [the plaintiffs] thought anyone would listen to them,” Cockrell said. “This is someone who’s been solicitor for 12 years, who still has influence over the current solicitor, law enforcement and almost every elected official in this circuit.” A criminal prosecution is possible. In South Carolina there is no criminal statue of limitations on these types of actions, which are considered violent crimes and a felony. Cockrell filed a motion for confidentiality and referred to his clients as “Youth Male A” and “Youth Male B” in the filings. An exhibit accompanying the case, and which is part of the public record, contained the plaintiffs’ names. They were legible, although an attempt had been made to redact them. The plaintiffs are seeking unspecified damages to cover the ongoing “pain and suffering, physical and emotional trauma, and permanent psychological damage” as well as the cost of the psychiatric and psychological treatment both plaintiffs require. The suit alleges that all of the defendants are responsible for sexual battery of a child, negligence, fraud, breach of fiduciary duty, willful misconduct and intentional inflection of emotional distress. Though the alleged incidents happened more than 30 years ago, Cockrell said the traumatic memories were deeply suppressed by the plaintiffs and only came out recently. The suit claims that prior to 2011, both plaintiffs could not have reasonably discovered the causal relationship between abuses suffered and the resulting psychological damages. “The lion’s share of the events are just now being revealed to the clients,” Cockrell said. “The events are not something they consciously knew of. The symptoms were there, the effects were there like attempted suicide, but where the depression was coming from was not known.” An exhibit submitted with the filing is an evaluation of Youth Male A from psychologist Mary Gail Frawley-O’Dea, a Charlotte-based expert on adult survivors of sexual abuse. The report was based on evaluations of Youth Male A conducted in February and indicates that the two plaintiffs are brothers. In the abuse narrative recounted to Frawley-O’Dea, the plaintiff said that he knew of at least two other victims who were abused by Hebard. The narrative said that Hebard’s alleged abuses included fondling and masturbating the victim twice during trips to Huntington Beach State Park. It goes on to say that the plaintiffs’ mother reported the abuse to the pastor at First Presbyterian, who removed Hebard as troop leader, but that no one reported the incidents to the authorities. The Rev. A. Stuart Nickles Jr. was the pastor of the church when the alleged abuses occurred, but he retired in 2001. Neither Nickles nor the current pastor at FPC could be reached Tuesday. Hebard was a community activist in the Cheraw area and died in early 2007 at the age of 63. In addition to his involvement in the Boy Scouts, he was active in Cheraw-area youth sports, was a youth sports umpire and was employed for a short time by the Cheraw Recreation Department. In 2000 Hebard plead guilty to abuse/neglect of a vulnerable adult and received two years of probation. Ironically, Hodge’s office prosecuted that case. The plaintiff’s account of the abuses went on to say that Hodge, Hebard’s successor as Scout master of Troop 663, allegedly fondled and masturbated him on three separate occasions at First Presbyterian Church, on a camping trip to Camp Bob Cooper in Santee and at Hodge’s Cheraw home. Hodge, 63, is the former Fourth Circuit solicitor and still practices law in Cheraw. He retired as solicitor in early 2009, was re-employed by the new solicitor on a part-time basis and then resigned from the position in May 2009 when he became the subject of an FBI investigation. At the time it was alleged that Hodge mismanaged the finances of Mercy Ministries, a faith-based nonprofit where he served as president for eight years. No charges have resulted from the investigation. Cockrell also noted that he has “had to defend” pedophiles in the past and that they have all turned the story around and called their accusers liars. “I have never met somebody who molested young boys who admitted it,” Cockrell said. “Maybe there are some, but Jerry Sandusky still says he’s innocent and has been framed. Hodge is doing what he can to create a smokescreen.” The Pee Dee Scout Council oversees Troop 663. Council Scout executive Barry McDonald said he’d never heard of Hebard until he heard about the suit, which he had still not been served with Tuesday. The BSA has a youth protection program with several layers of accountability, and all adult volunteers, including Scout masters, are required to take youth protection training every two years. Scouting parents are also encouraged to learn the youth protection policies. Current BSA policy requires all adults involved in Scouting to report to authorities “any good faith suspicion or belief that any child is or has been physically or sexually abused, physically or emotionally neglected, exposed to any form of violence or threat, exposed to any form of sexual exploitation including the possession, manufacture, or distribution of child pornography, online solicitation, enticement, or showing of obscene material.” Under the policy, no individual involved in the organization may abdicate the responsibility to someone else and once a report has been made, the Scout executive must also be notified so the organization can take action to protect scouts. BSA has nearly three million boys as members. The BSA, the Pee Dee Boy Scout Council, First Presbyterian Church of Cheraw, Hodge and Hebard’s estate all have 30 days to respond to the allegations.
|
.
Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.