Ex-student Describes Sexual Abuse on Trip to Lake Viking with Kc Area Priest

By Udy L. Thomas
Kansas City Star
October 2, 2014

http://www.kansascity.com/news/local/article2488600.html

A former student at Nativity of Mary School in Independence told jurors Thursday that he and a friend endured sexual abuse on a weekend excursion with Monsignor Thomas O’Brien in 1983.

When the boys got home and told their parents, one father reported it to the Catholic Diocese of Kansas City St.-Joseph and met with then-Bishop John J. Sullivan, according to testimony presented to the Jackson County jury. But those families had no idea at the time that the priest who groped the boys and stripped naked on a bed in front of them had been reported to the diocese multiple times over the previous 20 years.

“To this day,” attorney Pedro Irigonegaray asked Darren Wahwassuck, “has a single representative of the Catholic diocese contacted you to say, ‘I’m sorry’?”

“No, sir,” Wahwassuck replied.

Jurors heard the fourth day of testimony in a civil trial involving Jon David Couzens, a former altar boy who says O’Brien sexually abused him in the early 1980s. Couzens claims the diocese was told repeatedly that O’Brien was a danger to children but failed to prevent the abuse.

The diocese contends that no credible evidence exists to prove those allegations and argues that Couzens’ claims of repressed memory are invalid. O’Brien, who has been the subject of dozens of sexual abuse lawsuits, died last year at 87.

Five witnesses testified Thursday, including a former Nativity teacher and a clinical psychologist who evaluated Couzens.