DALLAS (TX)
WFAA TV
January 24, 2019
By Mark Smith and Jason Whitely
Childhood photos are difficult for him to look back on.
“Only when you personally have gone through something like this do you understand what it looks like to not want to exist anymore,” said the 33-year-old man, who asked that WFAA not publish his name.
In a lawsuit he filed last year under the name John Doe, he is suing the Catholic Diocese of Dallas alleging that a priest named Timothy J. Heines, “sexually, emotionally, and physically abused” him.
“Ten years of my life were taken by a man that I thought cared for me and loved me in a church that I thought protected me and wanted to shepherd me as a young Christian,” the plaintiff told WFAA.
At age 12, his parents separated, and he said his mother got him involved in a local Catholic parish where he met Father Heines.
The priest soon began taking the young teen to dinner and buying him haircuts and expensive clothes while in high school.
“When we got back to the rectory at nighttime, he would encourage us to try on the clothes in front of him,” he said, “and he’d take out a camera and take pictures.”
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