NEW YORK (NY)
Al Jazeera
Oct. 25, 2019
By Paul Abowd
When Tim Murphy published his memoir in 2007, it revealed allegations of sexual abuse he said he had faced at the hands of a Catholic priest four decades prior.
Murphy’s self-portrait depicted a rebellious teenager who grew up in a devout Catholic family in Millbrook, New York, in the United States of the late 1960s.
As a teenager, Murphy had begun abusing drugs and alcohol and had run-ins with law enforcement. That is when his parents asked a family friend – Father Donald Timone – for help counselling their son.
Murphy wrote that this priest abused his parents’ trust – detailing the years of alleged molestation he faced during trips to the country and overnight stays at Timone’s residence, beginning when he was aged between 12 and 13.
“At this vulnerable season of adolescence this priest left me mentally crippled, an injury that would last for years and years,” he wrote in the memoir entitled From Crack to the Cross: A Journey of Hope.
In 2002, Murphy took the advice of a counsellor and decided to file a police report. In 2003, he also reported Timone to the Archdiocese of New York, testifying in person about the alleged abuse he had faced.
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