The Rev. Richard Mccormick Guilty in Rapes at Camp
By Julie Manganis
Three decades ago, the Rev. Richard McCormick took his innocence and his faith, said the now-grown victim of repeated rapes by McCormick. On Wednesday, a jury and a judge took McCormick’s freedom. McCormick, 73, was put into custody moments after a Lawrence Superior Court jury found him guilty of five counts of child rape, charges stemming from incidents at a camp operated by McCormick’s religious order, the Salesian Society of North America, in Ipswich. McCormick, who denies the abuse, his lawyer said during the trial, faces the possibility of spending the rest of his life in prison when he is sentenced on Dec. 18. Each count carries a potential life term. Judge Robert Cornetta, who filled in for trial Judge Mary Lou Rup Wednesday, granted prosecutor Kate MacDougall’s request to revoke McCormick’s bail. Prior to his arrest, McCormick was living at a home for retired Salesian priests in New Rochelle, New York. While out on bail awaiting trial, he was living at the Vianney Renewal Center outside St. Louis, Missouri, a facility for priests accused of sexual abuse. McCormick looked down, showing no reaction as the jury read each of the verdicts. The victim, seated with a friend and family members, wept. “Until this day, I’ve been afraid people wouldn’t believe me,” said McCormick’s victim, now 44, after the verdict. That’s why he told almost no one what had happened to him in 1981 and 1982 at the camp on the grounds of the former Sacred Heart Retreat, starting when he was about 10. The case is one of the oldest child sexual abuse cases to be prosecuted in Massachusetts, following a change in the law that lengthened the amount of time victims had to come forward and also due to the fact that McCormick had left Massachusetts. Under the law, time spent outside the state doesn’t count toward the statute of limitations. Though he disclosed the abuse to a girlfriend in the early 1990s after she became concerned about his nightmares and the way he reacted when she touched his face, he did not approach authorities until a few years ago. Besides fearing he would not be believed, he didn’t know the full name of the priest who would pull him out of activities and wake him from sleep, bring him to an office or storage closet, and then violate him. He would sometimes sneak out of the dorm and hide in the Ipswich woods to avoid the priest. He knew his abuser only as “Father Dick,” one of any number of priests, brothers and staffers named Richard who worked at the camp. Then, on a slow day at work about five years ago, he went online, looking at a directory of Salesian priests, and McCormick’s name jumped out at him, he testified. He then did a Google search and found a photo of McCormick, who he recalled as looking like the actor Alan Alda. McCormick had been the subject of a series of civil settlements by the Salesian religious order in cases of alleged sexual abuse. He had also been moved out of a position as a school director in Goshen, New York, shortly before he arrived at Camp Salesian in the early 1980s. Stephen Neyman, who represented McCormick, argued to jurors that his client had been mistakenly identified by the accuser, and he pointed to discrepancies in the timeline of the allegations. Mitchell Garabedian, a lawyer who now represents the victim, said his client is one of 16 people he represents who say they are victims of McCormick, at one time the leader of the order. “The world is now a safer place for children because of my client’s desire and concern to proceed criminally” with the allegations, rather than pursue a civil settlement, Garabedian said. “All the evidence points to the fact that Richard McCormick is a serial pedophile.” “Rape of a child is a heinous crime,” District Attorney Jonathan Blodgett said. “It is a fundamental violation of a child’s innocence that can never be truly restored. My hope is that these guilty verdicts allow this brave man to find some peace of mind, knowing that none of this was his fault.” As he waited for the verdict with his brother and a friend, the victim said, he was worried. Jurors deliberated for about five hours on Monday, then returned Wednesday. But one juror had been excused because of a scheduling conflict, meaning the jury was supposed to start over again on Wednesday morning. “It was an absolute eternity,” he said. Then, shortly before 11 a.m., the foreman began to read the verdicts. “The ‘guiltys’ kept coming,” he said. “I want to thank them, not for listening to a 44-year-old man, but for listening to the cries of a 10-year-old child,” he said. “I can never repay any of these people for what they did.” He feels sad that jurors now have images of his abuse in their minds. And while he feels vindication, “halfway through the trial, I realized no matter the outcome, it’s still going to be there.” He said the abuse has taken a toll. Though he’s had professional success and is now married, he struggled with relationships for a long time, he said, always pushing people away. The church he loved, and the priests, kind men who trained him to be an altar boy or taught at the Catholic high school he attended, who were surrogate fathers to him, were no longer in his life. Now, “I don’t believe in God,” he said. “I have no faith whatsoever.” Courts reporter Julie Manganis can be reached at 978-338-2521, via email at jmanganis@salemnews.com or on Twitter @SNJulieManganis.
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