Another Sexual Abuse Lawsuit Filed against Chaminade College Preparatory School

St. Louis Post-Dispatch
November 5, 2015

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/another-sexual-abuse-lawsuit-filed-against-chaminade-college-preparatory-school/article_506164b5-4d30-59b3-bc89-c13894c7da4c.html

A new sexual abuse lawsuit has been filed against Chaminade College Preparatory School, over the actions of a now deceased Marianist Brother between 1968 and 1971.

According to the suit, John Woulfe engaged in the abuse while working as a guidance counselor, which is how he met the boy during his junior year of high school.

The suit accuses Woulfe of pulling the boy, identified in the suit as John Doe, out of class for college counseling sessions that turned sexual. It alleges school officials knew of the abuse and failed to stop it, and says that Woulfe had sexually assaulted at least one other boy at Chaminade before Doe.

It is the latest complaint to be filed against the school and more than a half dozen clerics there, according to the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.

And it is at least the third lawsuit against Woulfe alleging sexual abuse. The Missouri Supreme Court issued an opinion on a previous lawsuit involving Woulfe and another teacher at Chaminade College Preparatory, the Rev. William Christensen, in 2006. The lawsuit was first filed in 2002 by Michael Powel, a former student at the school.

Last year, another lawsuit alleged Woulfe sexually abused plaintiff Chris Boisaubin, 59, when he was a minor, in 1970 when he first became a boarding student at the school.

According to SNAP, after leaving Chaminade, Woulfewent on to teach in a public school in Iroquois County, Ill. after leaving Chaminade in near Bloomington), taught in a public school there and was arrested on child sex charges.

The lawsuit, filed Wednesday in St. Louis County Circuit Court, names the Marianist Province of the United States as a defendant, as well as the Rev. Martin Solma. Solma is head of the Roman Catholic order, which is based in St. Louis.

Chaminade College Preparatory, a Marianist boarding school in Creve Coeur serving boys in grades 6 through 12, is also named as a defendant. Requests for comment were not immediately answered Thursday.

In both recent cases, a 2012 letter from Solma that named Woulfe triggered memories for the alleged victims.