By Rebecca Mayer
The Lake Oswego Review
February 5, 2009

Clackamas County Circuit Court dismissed a lawsuit against Lake Oswego School District that claimed that former teacher Judd Johnson sexually abused seven men – then elementary school students – between the late 60s and early 80s. Judge James Tait left the claims against Johnson pending.

In order for the men to win the case, they will have to convince the courts or possibly even the Legislature to change the statute of limitations on crimes involving public entities. The men appealed the ruling to the Oregon Court of Appeals on Jan. 7.

Originally three men filed suit in February, seeking $2 million each for emotional trauma and “permanent psychological damage” and $100,000 each for future therapy. Four more added their names to the list in April, bringing the total suit to $14.7 million.

Some of the men, who are now in their 40s and 50s, have remained friends over the years, and some of them have never met. All seven –anonymous in the lawsuit – allege abuse by Johnson over the course of his career that includes Bryant Elementary School, Forest Hills Elementary School and Lake Grove Elementary School. Typically, Johnson allegedly used the grooming process to fondle the boys’ genitals and buttocks.

The complaint alleges that an LOSD administrator knew about the abuse but had a practice of transferring Johnson around the district to cover it up.

The school district, represented by attorney David Ernst, disputes that the suit is valid because the Oregon Tort Claims Act establishes a 180-day notice period, subject to a 90-day extension. It contains a two-year statute of limitations.

According to the seven plaintiffs’ attorney Kelly Clark, “It is unreasonable up to the point of unconstitutional to expect a child abuse survivor to file suit before he consciously understands he has been injured.”

Clark, who has represented about 150 sexual abuse victims in suits against the Boy Scouts, Catholic Church, other churches and schools, said that there has been no challenge of the constitutionality of the two-year statute of limitations. Clark has concluded from his experience with child abuse cases that the law is unreasonable. Under Oregon law, private organizations such as churches are under different statutes of limitations than government bodies.

The original three victims were prompted to come forward when a series of articles on sexual abuse in schools ran in The Oregonian last February. They claim that realizing the importance of the abuse came to them in 2006 or 2007. The four others joined the suit after it was made public, also in February.

The youngest man in the suit said he told his mother in the early 1980s what had happened while he was a student at Lake Grove Elementary School. She supposedly contacted an administrator who told her that if she kept quiet about the abuse Johnson would be transferred. She refused and went to law enforcement with her complaint.

According to the lawsuit, one year prior to her son’s alleged abuse, Johnson had been discovered abusing a different young boy in a boat on Oswego Lake. The district allegedly knew about the incident but took no action. At that time, Johnson was not prosecuted because the boy did not want to testify.

In a separate incident, Johnson pleaded guilty to second-degree sexual abuse in Clackamas County and was sentenced to two years of probation and counseling. He resigned from the school district on Feb. 1, 1984 and the state revoked his teaching license.

Ernst argued that the youngest plaintiff did have constructive knowledge of his abuse in the 80s, so therefore the statute of limitations already started and expired. However, the complaint claims that the plaintiff had no knowledge of the alleged misconduct of the district until after last year.

According to court documents, Johnson denies every allegation since he does not know the identity of the plaintiffs.

Attorney Kelly Clark says the plaintiffs will continue to fight until they achieve justice.

The News Review
October 31, 2008

A lawsuit has been filed against the Milo Adventist Academy over allegations that a woman who served as an assistant coach, instructor and choir leader at the Days Creek-area boarding school sexually abused a 15-year-old female student.

The suit, filed Thursday in Multnomah County Circuit Court, alleges that the woman groomed and sexually abused the girl in 2007 and 2008.

Neither the alleged victim nor the accused woman are named in the lawsuit, which seeks up to $100,000 in damages for past and future counseling and medical expenses and $3 million for psychological suffering and damage.

The suit essentially blames the academy for allowing the alleged abuse to occur, as well as for failing to properly investigate the woman’s background, then for retaining her even once information came to light that she had a history of inappropriate sexual misconduct with children in the past.

“We believe we can prove that there was information they could have learned that should have prevented them from bringing her on at all,” said Portland attorney Kelly Clark, who filed the suit along with Coos Bay attorney Bill McDaniel.

The Oregon Conference of Seventh-Day Adventists and the Western Oregon Conference and Southern Oregon Conference Associations of Seventh-day Adventists are also named as defendants in the lawsuit.

Herald Follett, general counsel for the Seventh-day Adventists Church in Oregon, said this morning he had not heard of the lawsuit and had no comment at this time. The academy’s principal, Randy Bovee, also declined to comment.

Clark, who regularly handles child sexual abuse cases including those against the Catholic Church and other organizations, said he believed the accused woman was some sort of part-time volunteer at the school.

The woman, who Clark said was in her early twenties, assisted with coaching, instructing and choir. The alleged victim was a member of choir and participated on several sports teams.

Clark said the teen’s parents ended up finding out about the alleged abuse, which was reported to the school. He said the parents did not press criminal charges.

He said he didn’t know if the woman was still working or volunteering with the school. The teen has since moved out of state with her family.

Clark called the case a “very sad story” and said the teen continues to suffer emotionally and spiritually.

“She’s struggling,” he said.

By Tim King Salem-News.com

August 31st, 2007

Lawyers for the plaintiff say a fifteen-year old male who molested a seven-year old girl had an established history as a sex offender in another state.

(SALEM, Ore.) – Attorneys representing a 23-year old Oregon woman say she was subjected to multiple counts of sexual molestation and abuse as a 7-year old girl while attending the East Salem Seventh Day Adventist Church.

Kelly Clark of the Portland law firm O’Donnell & Clark LLP, says the offender at the time was a 15-year old boy who attended the same congregation.

Clark says the case is important, because it illustrates the need for churches to monitor and maintain people who are in a close proximity to children. Their law firm has been involved in a number of successful similar actions involving the Catholic Church that date back to 1999.

(more…)

BY PETE SPRINGER - OPB News
November 26, 2008

U.S. District Judge Michael Hogan Wednesday ordered the Archdiocese of Portland to release files of pedophile priests that the Archdiocese has been withholding.  Pete Springer reports.

Over a year ago, the Archdiocese of Portland agreed to release files on pedophile priests as part of a $70 million bankruptcy settlement.

They did release some documents, but refused to release others, claiming they contained personal information about priests not involved in the lawsuit.

But after months of arbitration and reviewing the documents, Judge Hogan rejected that argument.

His ruling is binding and cannot be appealed.

An attorney who represented the priest sex abuse victims in the bankruptcy case was not available for comment but says in a media release that he plans to use a website to post the church documents so that “the public can understand the history of the problem”.

Attorneys for the victims are planning to discuss the ruling publicly on Friday.

The Associated Press
11/27/2008, 4:40 p.m.

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — A federal judge ordered the release of more documents from the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Portland that may shed light on how church officials responded to allegations that priests sexually abused minors.

The order from U.S. District Judge Michael Hogan on Wednesday was a result of the settlement in 2007 of about 175 lawsuits for $50 million to end the first bankruptcy filing in the nation by a Catholic diocese.

After the settlement, victim advocates and church officials disagreed over how many documents to release.

Hogan’s order requires the archdiocese to release documents about allegations of sexual misconduct by priests involving minors and the knowledge of the archdiocese about the allegations, or its response to them.

He said the order doesn’t apply immediately in the cases of priests involved in a related dispute over disclosure or in pending litigation.

Hogan’s decision says names of victims have been redacted from the documents.

Portland lawyer Kelly Clark, who represented more than 40 victims, praised the decision and said it meant the archdiocese must release almost all of the disputed documents.

"This is a good day for survivors, and all the men and women abused as boys and girls by priests of this archdiocese can feel rightly proud that they have stood their ground and did not let the archdiocese back out of its commitments," Clark said.

He said a Web site is under construction that will organize the documents so readers can understand the history of cases and how church officials enabled or covered up abuse.

The archdiocese released a statement that said almost all of the misconduct occurred from 1940 to the mid-1980s.

"Today the Archdiocese of Portland has comprehensive child protection policies and programs," it said, including an Office of Child Protection and national programs to audit protections and ensure that people who work with minors are appropriately screened.

Woman’s $4.5 million in damages stem from suit against stepfather

Statesman Journal
November 11, 2008

A woman was awarded a total of $4.5 million in damages for emotional and physical harm inflicted by her stepfather in what her attorneys say involves the largest award for a sex abuse trial in the state.

Marion County Circuit Judge Lynn Ashcroft added$3 million in punitive damages Monday to the $1.5 million in damages a jury already had levied.

The 24-year-old woman, who asked not to be identified, brought the case against her stepfather, Edward Webb, on accusations that included sexual molestation and inappropriate touching.

Webb’s attorney, Robert Gunn, declined to comment Monday.

The woman was awarded$1.5 million in noneconomic damages on Oct. 31 after a three-day jury trial, said attorney Gilion Dumas of the firm O’Donnell Clark and Crew.

Dumas said the firm also believes the case was the largest award for any personal injury case in Marion County.

"It definitely shows that if the victims of sex abuse are brave enough to come forward, the court system will treat them fairly and with respect in their search for justice," she said.

The alleged acts began when the woman was 11 or 12 years old and continued until she was about 14 years old. Court documents also said Webb, 43, forced the girl into such acts such as wearing pantyhose, tying her up and touching her.

The suit was brought under Oregon law that allows adults to sue their childhood abusers, Dumas said. The woman did not report the abuse under Oregon’s criminal child-abuse law because the statute of limitations had run out.

Associated Press
November 10, 2008

SALEM, Ore. (AP) – A woman who sued her stepfather after claiming she was repeatedly sexually abused as a child has been awarded $4.5 million in damages.

A Marion County jury awarded the 24-year-old woman $1.5 million for pain and suffering before a judge awarded her $3 million in punitive damages in a separate hearing without the jury on Monday.

The woman’s attorney, Gilion Dumas, said it was 1 of the largest awards in a sexual abuse case in the history of the state.

Testimony at trial indicated the woman was only 12 when her stepfather, Edward Webb, would tie her up, force her to wear nylons and then abuse her.

Webb’s attorney, Robert Gunn, declined to comment on the case.

She says her stepfather physically and sexually harmed her as a child

Statesman Journal
November 7, 2008

The Associated Press
10/21/2008

 PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — The Higher Balance Institute and its founders face a sex abuse lawsuit.

The complaint accuses the Beaverton spiritual organization and founders Eric Pepin and Jamison Priebe of sexually abusing a teenage boy while he was their disciple.

The lawsuit was filed Oct. 8 in Multnomah County Circuit Court by Portland attorney Kelly Clark, who filed many of the abuse lawsuits against the Roman Catholic Church in Oregon settled last year for more than $50 million.

Pepin and Priebe were acquitted of criminal sex abuse charges in a trial last year in Washington County Circuit Court.

But Clark says in the lawsuit the pair had a "system for preying upon young people."

Efforts to contact Higher Balance were unsuccessful.

The Higher Balance Institute and its founders face a sex abuse lawsuit.

www.KUIK.com
10/22/2008

The complaint accuses the Beaverton spiritual organization and founders Eric Pepin and Jamison Priebe of sexually abusing a teenage boy while he was their disciple.

The lawsuit was filed October 8 in Multnomah County Circuit Court by Portland attorney Kelly Clark, who filed many of the abuse lawsuits against the Roman Catholic Church in Oregon settled last year for more than $50 million.

Pepin and Priebe were acquitted of criminal sex abuse charges in a trial last year in Washington County Circuit Court.

But Clark says in the lawsuit the pair had a "system for preying upon young people."

Efforts to contact Higher Balance were unsuccessful.

by Julie Sullivan and Charles Pope
The Oregonian

 Jeff Elizalde’s patriotism is as plain as the U.S. flags in his Salem condo, rescued after parades or blown from car lots. Elizalde has cleaned, pressed and hung them across his windows and walls, next to framed tributes to a World War II radioman — his dad.

But beyond the stacks of Marine Corps Times and the "USMC" tattoos on each biceps, Elizalde’s own military career is nothing to celebrate. He was discharged under conditions "other than honorable" after an incident he says "set me into a pattern of drinking and ruined my life."

Elizalde says he was an 18-year-old Marine playing spades on an Okinawa, Japan, base in November 1977 when he followed a staff sergeant to look for another party. As they walked through an empty Quonset hut, he says, the sergeant overpowered and raped him.

"I didn’t tell anybody," Elizalde, 49, said. "I didn’t know how. How do you tell someone in the Marine Corps you’ve been raped?"

As the nation grapples with the aftershocks of two long wars, the Department of Veterans Affairs is confronting a quiet wave of veterans with mental health problems linked to sexual misconduct. New research has uncovered hundreds of cases among those serving in Afghanistan and Iraq, and found that those combat vets are two to three times likelier to suffer depression, post-traumatic stress syndrome, and alcohol and drug abuse.

Read Kelly’s remarks here…

(more…)

Seattlepi.com
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

By Andrew Theen

Portland, OR  
August 10, 2008

Attorneys for the Society of Jesus Oregon Province are in mediation with a Portland woman who alleges years of sex abuse at the hands of two Jesuit priests.  As Andrew Theen reports, if a settlement isn’t reached the case goes to trial in October.

The $15 million lawsuit accuses  Jesuit leaders in Oregon of fraud and negligence.  A Portland woman says she was sexually abused starting at age 7 for a couple of years in the 1960s.

One of the priests named was implicated in dozens of sex abuse cases in Alaska; the other was a target in a high-profile Archdiocese of Portland case.

Kelly Clark is a Portland attorney representing the victim.  He says "cases like this aren’t fun."

Kelly Clark: "I don’t think it’s a particularly good thing for the Province of Jesuits or my client to go to trial.  But ultimately, if parties can’t agree on how to resolve a legal dispute that’s what juries are for."

Oregon’s Jesuit leaders say they will continue to cooperate with the legal proceedings, and that their desire is to bring "healing and justice" to the victim. 

Lawsuit – The men are seeking $8.5 million from the Boy Scouts and Mormon church

Two Portland-area men filed an $8.5 million lawsuit Wednesday against the Mormon church and the Boy Scouts, bringing to eight the number of former Scouts alleging sexual abuse by former troop and church leader Timur Van Dykes.

The eight men are seeking a total of more than $33 million in damages.

The lawsuits, filed in Multnomah County Circuit Court, contend the abuse began in the early 1980s, ended in the early ’90s and involved Boy Scout Troops 478 and 719, both of which were sponsored by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The Boy Scouts has been part of the Mormon church’s official men’s program since 1913.

Six of the alleged victims agreed earlier this month to enter talks to settle their lawsuits but failed to reach a resolution.

Dykes, a registered sex offender, lives in Southwest Portland. He has been convicted of at least 26 sex crimes since 1983.

The state sex offender registry lists him as a predator who targets infant males and boys ages 7 to 15, warning that he "has used intimidation and threats to maintain victim compliance."

He is one of about 50 Oregon leaders expelled by the Boy Scouts for sex abuse between 1970 and 1990 and more than 5,100 leaders expelled nationally since 1946, according to confidential Boy Scouts files and summaries obtained by The Oregonian.

Under Oregon’s flexible statute of limitations, victims of sexual abuse can bring cases once they’ve discovered how the abuse affected them, sometimes decades after the actual crimes.

In Oregon, the Boy Scouts faces at least four more pending civil cases involving allegations of child sex abuse.

The first criminal sex-abuse charges against Dykes came in 1983, when two boys told Portland police that the Scout leader molested them. Dykes pleaded guilty to attempted second-degree sexual abuse and was sentenced to probation.

The lawsuits contend that the Mormon church discovered in the early 1980s that Dykes had molested a Scout but failed to thoroughly investigate and question Dykes, failed to report abuse to law enforcement, failed to provide mental health services to victims and failed to remove Dykes from contact with children.

"We believe that the Mormon church and the Boy Scouts allowed Timur Dykes to stay in contact with children for years after his first arrest and conviction for child sex abuse," said plaintiff attorney Kelly Clark.

But Steve English, attorney for the Mormon church, said the two new alleged victims were never members of the church and that Dykes had been expelled from the church nearly a decade before the alleged abuse in the late 1980s.

The Boy Scouts Cascade Pacific Council declined to comment on the case.

Dykes has been a source of legal troubles for the Boy Scouts before. Three lawsuits alleging abuse filed in 1987 resulted in undisclosed settlements. The mother of one of Dykes’ earliest alleged victims told The Oregonian in 1995 that abuse of her son contributed to his suicide.

Peter Zuckerman: 503-294-5919; peterzuckerman@ news.oregonian.com

Posted by Peter Zuckerman, The Oregonian
June 25, 2008 15:00PM

Two Portland men filed an $8.5 million lawsuit today against the Mormon church and the Boy Scouts, bringing to eight the total number of former Boy Scouts alleging sexual abuse by Timur Van Dykes, who was a church and scout leader in the 1980s and early 90s.

The lawsuit contends that Timur Van Dykes molested Boy Scouts in Troop 719, which was supervised by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Dykes, a registered sex offender who now lives in Southwest Portland, has been convicted of at least 26 sex crimes since 1983.

Together, the pending abuse cases filed in Multnomah County Court against the scouts and the church seek $33.5 million.

Six of the alleged victims agreed earlier this month to enter talks to settle their lawsuits but failed to reach a resolution.

At least a dozen Oregon child-abuse cases are pending against the Boy Scouts.

– Peter Zuckerman; peterzuckerman@news.oregonian.com

$25 million – Six men have filed against the Boy Scouts and the Mormon church

Six Portland men agreed to enter talks this week to settle their $25 million lawsuit against the Mormon church and the Boy Scouts of America over alleged sexual abuse.

The lawsuit in the U.S. District Court in Portland contends that in the 1980s and 1990s Timur Van Dykes molested Boy Scouts in Troop 719, which the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints supervised. Since 1983, Dykes, 51, has been convicted of at least 26 sex crimes.

"The amazing thing about this case is the extent to which these institutions continued to allow him access to kids, even after he had acknowledged sexually abusing boys and, indeed, after he had been convicted for doing so," said Portland attorney Kelly Clark, who represents the plaintiffs.

Attorney Steve English, who represents the Mormon Church, said that perspective is inaccurate.

"The church worked cooperatively with the Portland police, who learned of this abuse before the church did, and the church suspended Mr. Dykes’ privileges as a church member within two weeks of learning of this abuse," English said.

The Cascade Pacific Council of the Boy Scouts of America in Portland did not return phone calls.

Dykes, who lives in Southwest Portland, is one of about 50 Oregon leaders expelled by the Boy Scouts for sex abuse between 1970 and 1990, according to confidential Boy Scout files obtained by The Oregonian. The number of Boy Scout leaders ejected in Oregon eclipses the number of abusive priests identified statewide in the recent Catholic Church sex-abuse scandal.

Under Oregon’s flexible statute of limitations, victims of sexual abuse can bring cases once they’ve discovered how the abuse affected them, sometimes decades after the actual crimes.

Dykes has been a source of legal troubles for the Boy Scouts before. Three lawsuits alleging abuse filed in 1987 resulted in undisclosed settlements. The mother of one of Dykes’ earliest alleged victims told The Oregonian in 1995 that abuse of her son contributed to his suicide.

Peter Zuckerman: 503-294-5919; peterzuckerman@ news.oregonian.com

Posted by The Associated Press June 10, 2008 14:23PM
Oregonlive.com

Settlement hearings are planned this week for a $25 million lawsuit that claims the Mormon Church and the Boy Scouts failed to protect six boys from a man who was eventually convicted of sex abuse.

U.S. District Judge Michael Hogan and retired Lane County Circuit Judge Lyle Velure plan hearings Wednesday through Friday. They presided over the settlement of a similar lawsuit against the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Portland last year.

The hearings this week are on a suit that alleges abuse in the 1980s and early ’90s by Timur Van Dykes, a former Sunday school teacher who was also a Scout leader.

Dykes, 52, has been convicted of at least 26 sex crimes since 1983. He is one of about 50 Oregon leaders expelled by the Boy Scouts for sex abuse between 1970 and 1990 and more than 5,100 leaders expelled nationally since 1946.

June 1, 2008

By Sam Hemingway
Free Press Staff Writer

Dorothy Whiston was upset when she first learned in 2006 that her Roman Catholic diocese in Davenport, Iowa, was filing for bankruptcy.

The Midwestern diocese announced it was taking the step after concluding it lacked the funds to resolve a mounting number of lawsuits filed by dozens of victims of clergy sexual abuse, including one claim that a former bishop had molested boys.

"It was very painful," recalled Whiston, a regular attendee at St. Thomas More Catholic Church in Iowa City, Iowa.

Today, a month after a federal judge approved a bankruptcy reorganization plan for the Davenport diocese and the 105,000 parishioners it serves, Whiston sees things differently.

"I think it actually was a good experience," she said. "At the time, I was very skeptical, but we needed to enter into this process."

That process has resulted in profound changes for the Davenport diocese, which had already paid $10.7 million to 45 clergy sexual abuse victims prior to its decision to seek bankruptcy protection.

In order to pay out $37 million more in claims to an additional 162 priest sexual abuse victims, the diocese had to sell off a number of assets, including the site of its headquarters and the bishop’s residence. The bishop now lives in rental housing.

(more…)

One priest flunked a class on dogma in seminary school.

Another retired early because of crippling back pain.

Yet another priest was notorious for not paying his bills on time.

The 2,000 internal documents released by the Archdiocese of Portland on Tuesday evening revealed thousands of details about 14 priests accused of molesting children in Oregon from the 1950s to the 1990s.

But most of the details have nothing to do with sexual abuse.

As a result, the documents shed little new light on a sex scandal that involved dozens of priests, forced the Portland Archdiocese into an unprecedented bankruptcy in 2004 and cost in excess of $100 million.

With some exceptions, what’s notable is what’s not in the documents.

Thomas Dulcich, a Portland attorney who represents the archdiocese, said thousands of pages of documents are already in the public record and have been thoroughly scoured.

"Maybe there isn’t much more to the story," Dulcich said.

One file on the Rev. Erasto Guzman Chavez contains several pages regarding sex-abuse allegations. The file contains about 10 letters from parishioners at St. Alexander Parish in Hillsboro accusing the priest of molesting preteen and teenage girls. The allegations included kissing, touching breasts and putting his hand up one girl’s blouse.

"It is very upsetting to me to know that there was knowledge of this type of activity four years ago," one letter writer said.

"We as a community need to call into question our own responsibility in what has happened since Erasto Guzman’s inappropriate behavior was first reported."

The most recent release also includes hundreds of pages about the Rev. Maurice Grammond, the most notorious pedophile priest in Oregon.

Attorneys for those who accused Grammond of sexual abuse say church officials knew about his behavior by the late 1950s, but the archdiocese says nothing showed up in his personnel file until 1992.

On Feb. 6, 1992, the Rev. Charles Lienert, an archdiocesan official, wrote a memo indicating that Grammond had no previous allegations of sex abuse, even in the secret archives.

On the same day, Lienert wrote a second memo summarizing a meeting in which Grammond appeared "unannounced in an agitated condition" because of the accusations. Grammond told Lienert that he couldn’t remember what happened 20 years previously and threatened to hire a lawyer.

"He said that Archbishop Dwyer had talked to him about this years ago, and that Archbishop Dwyer was a decent bishop," Lienert’s memo said. "He said that Fr. Jim Harris was accused of child abuse fifteen years ago and nothing has happened to him."

The recent release includes more than 100 pages on Harris. A few carefully worded letters about his visit to a California psychiatric clinic in 1972 hinted that he had been accused of sexual abuse.

Absent from the latest release are any new documents about Thomas Laughlin, a former priest who admitted sexually abusing dozens of boys in Oregon over several decades. Laughlin pleaded guilty in 1983 to molesting two boys and later was defrocked.

Dulcich said Laughlin, who is still alive, is the subject of a recent multimillion-dollar lawsuit, and his attorney asked the archdiocese not to release his personnel file.

Kelly Clark, a Portland attorney representing dozens of people who claim they were molested by priests, said there were thousands of pages of documents about Laughlin that have yet to be made public.

Dulcich said the process of releasing documents was ongoing.

"You wonder if there is some other agenda on the part of the people who continue to complain about the archdiocese as it continues to release thousands of documents," he said.

Ashbel S. (Tony) Green: 503-221-8202; tonygreen@news.oregonian.com