Sex Abuse Allegations Made Against 65 Brooklyn Clergy Members

WINDSOR TERRACE, BROOKLYN — Dozens of Brooklyn Diocese clergy members accused of sexually assaulting children have been identified in a 22-page report published by a national law firm.

“Hidden Disgrace,” a report from the group Lawyers Helping Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse, named 65 clergy members who served in more than 130 churches across Brooklyn and Queens who it says have been either accused or convicted of sexual abuse.

“The report was created to raise awareness about clergy sex abuse within the Brooklyn Diocese to encourage more survivors to come forward," the report reads in the introduction.

The list includes 11 men that the Brooklyn Diocese confirmed in November had been laicized — or defrocked — by a Vatican office that deals with cases concerning clergy and the sexual abuse of minors.

One such clergyman is James Lara, a Brooklyn priest who taught at St. Francis Xavier in Park Slope and who was quietly dismissed in 1992 after three people reported he abused them when they were between the ages of 9 and 11, the New York Times reported.

Lara went on to pursue an academic career and taught art history at Yale University and medieval and renaissance studies at Arizona State University, according to the Times.

The Brooklyn Diocese also confirmed that Joseph P. Byrns, William E. Finger, Stephen Placa, Thomas O. Morrow, Romano J. Ferraro, Charles M. Mangini, Christopher Lee Coleman, Robert McConnin, Barry E. Ryan and Patrick Sexton — whose names all appear in the report — had been defrocked.

But Carolyn Erstad, a Brooklyn Diocese spokeswoman, said the report was part of the group’s “advertisement campaigns to attain survivors as clients,” which she said they launched after the Diocese established the Independent Reconciliation and Compensation Program, which provides financial recompense to victims.

“When money is made available through a compensation program like the IRCP, there is always the risk of fraudulent allegations brought by people looking to make money,” Erstad said.

Erstad also said the list included names of falsely accused priests and priests for which allegations had not yet been confirmed.

“It appears today as though lawyers, looking for new clients, have hastily and irresponsibly published some names of innocent men," she said.

Jerry Kristal — a senior trial attorney with Weitz and Luxenberg, one of three firms behind the report — said the group published “Hidden Disgrace" to alert victims in Brooklyn and Queens that the deadline to apply for financial compensation was approaching.

"The idea that we’re trying to put ourself out there and hoodwink our clients is ridiculous," said Kristal. "Any time a big corporation get nervous — and the Diocese is a big corporation — they blame the victims and their attorneys."

Victims have until Dec. 21 to apply for compensation — which they can do with or without attorney representation — from the Brooklyn Diocese, according to Kristal and Brooklyn News 12, which originally covered the report.

Photo courtesy of the Brooklyn Diocese building at 310 Prospect Park West courtesy of GoogleMaps/Oct. 2016