JESUIT OFFICIALS PREPARE TO EMPLOY HARDBALL LEGAL TACTICS AGAINST HAITIANCHILD SEX ABUSE VICTIMS

JESUIT OFFICIALS PREPARE TO EMPLOY HARDBALL LEGAL TACTICS AGAINST HAITIAN CHILD SEX ABUSE VICTIMS

For immediate release

April 14, 2011 - Cyrus Sibert and Paul Kendrick meet with
seventeen sex abuse victims in Cap Haitien, Haiti

REV. PAUL CARRIER, S.J. HIDES IN DISGRACE. LACKS COURAGE TO TELL THE TRUTH.

As I stood in Doug Perlitz's empty bedroom in Haiti, I noticed a "Fairfield University Alumni" decal attached to the window pane. Perlitz had previously raped and sodomized children in this very room. As I pointed to the "Alumni" decal, one of Perlitz's abuse victims asked me how I knew about Fairfield University. I told him that this is the place (along with my Jesuit high school) where I first learned that the "service of my faith must include the promotion of justice."

I returned to Haiti three weeks ago to check on the care being provided to the former Project Pierre Toussaint (PPT) students who were abused by Fairfield University alumnus, Douglas Perlitz. Perlitz served for eleven years as Executive Director of Project Pierre Toussaint in Cap Haitien, Haiti. Twenty-two boys have reported that they were sexually abused by Perlitz. An additional sixty four boys were tossed back into the streets when PPT was forced to close.

In December 2010, and in the face of increasingly negative press and media pressure, Fairfield University President Jeffrey von Arx, S.J. and Catholic Order of Malta officials pledged $120,000 each to Kids' Alive, an evangelical Christian missionary group, to provide a five year plan of basic services to the abuse victims including nourishing food, safe shelter, clothing, school placement, medical and dental treatment, and guidance counseling. Von Arx's contribution amounts to 77 cents per day, per student, or together with Malta, $1.54 per day, per student.

Cyrus Sibert (reseaucitadelle@gmail.com), the Haitian journalist who, in November 2007, first broke the story about the sexual abuse of PPT students on his radio program, is trusted, respected and depended upon by the abuse victims. On two separate occasions, Cyrus and I gathered for two hours each with seventeen of the victims. I wanted to learn first hand about their daily struggles. I wanted to know what every minute of their days and nights are like. Are they being fed each day? Where do they sleep? Do they have soap, a toothbrush, toothpaste and running water? Do they wear the same clothes each day? How are they doing in school? When they are ill, are they taken to a doctor?

But most important, I wanted to know if the fact that these kids have been traumatized and harmed by child sex abuse is being acknowledged and considered by the Kids' Alive staff as the staff interacts in their lives. The answer is yes and no.

Kids' Alive officials have agreed with me that third party mental health intervention by qualified professionals, who are skilled in treating child sex abuse victims, is needed immediately. I will be asking President von Arx to provide funding for extended mental health treatment.

It was heartbreaking to listen as the abuse victims told me that many of the other former PPT students call them names and make fun of them for "doing sex things" with Perlitz. They said that people near the Kids' Alive center stare at them, knowing what happened to them. Many of the boys nodded and loudly said "yes" when one of them told me that h e feels very sad with a pain in his stomach and wants to hide or sleep all the time. He doesn't know the right words to describe clinical depression. Their is not adequate staff at the Kids' Alive Center yet to provide an ear to listen. The Kids' Alive manager responsible for the Cap Haitian area has only visited the site twice.

I appeared twice on Cyrus Sibert's radio program and told the Haitian people that these boys are heroes. After all, they somehow found the strength and courage, in the midst of their own pain and suffering, to speak out publicly against a popular and charismatic serial child molester and, in doing so, have protected cou ntless other children from being abused by Perlitz. Child abuse can never, ever be consensual, I told the audience. It is never the child's fault. In our meetings with the boys, I said these same words to them over and over. Once again, there is an immediate need for the victims to receive professional mental health treatment.

A child sex abuse victim's biggest fear is that if they do tell someone, they won't be believed. When the boys first reported their abuse, Father Paul Carrier, S.J., and eleven other former PPT and Connecticut Order of Malta members signed a letter to prominent donors in which Carrier and the others called the boys who reported their abuse "liars." One of these people is Hope Carter of New Canaan, CT who currently serves as a member of the Board of Directors of the Malta sponsored Sacre Coeur Hospital in Milot, Haiti. Cyrus and I traveled to the Sacre Coeur hospital to distribute leaflets to hospital administrators and staff. In addition, we met with community leaders in Milot and spoke again on the radio in an effort to inform the Haitian people that Carter had "obstructed justice' by flying to Haiti to secretly remove Perlitz's two computers and had called the boys "liars" without ever listening to what they had to say. She must be held accountable and responsible for not caring about your children, I said. She protected a pedophile instead of your kids. Word is spreading that an American named Hope Carter has insulted the abuse victims and the Haitian people. She must be removed from her position.

In addition, American workers who lived and worked in Haiti with Perlitz need to get honest about their roles in the cover up of Perlitz's abuse of children. We spent many hours with some of the abuse victims at Perlitz's residence. The victims told us that American workers, Jessica Lozier, Nicholas Prenata (two of the signers of the letter that said the boys were "liars") and Bridget McLean, all of whom lived in the house with Perlitz, were present on dozens of occasions as Perlitz led boys away from the living quarters to sleep with him in his private lower level suite. Lozier, Preneta, McLean and others, would then see the same boys again in the morning. Robenson Gedeus, the Haitian PPT official who, in January 2006, confronted Perlitz about abusing children, told me that on one of his visits to the U.S., he told a friend, a Fairfield, Connecticut school teacher, that Perlitz was abusing children. He said she cried when she heard this, but she either took no action or told a PPT board member who took no action to stop the abuse of the children in Haiti.

I also discovered that Sylvester Tan, S.J., a Jesuit scholastic from the New Orleans province, slept in a small space just outside Perlitz's bedroom while Tan worked at PPT during the first four months of 2008. I was told that Tan saw boys going to and from Perlitz's room to the bathroom and knew that boys stayed all night with Perlitz in Per litz's bedroom which was next to the room Tan slept in. Since returning from Haiti I have sent several emails to the New Orleans Jesuit Provincial asking for contact information for Sylvester Tan. My emails remain unanswered.

Has anyone confronted Deborah Picarazzi of Fairfield University's Campus Ministry to ask what she knows, saw or heard? She was a PPT board member in addition to working side by side with Carrier each day. Although I have asked for her help, she refuses to return my messages.

Cyrus and I met with two Kids' Alive officials at the two room "Boys' Center" in Cap Haitien. It was a contentious and boisterous meeting to say the least. Cyrus, who has lived and breathed the trials and tribulations of these boys for three plus years, including feeding them and listening to them when no one else would, was in no mood for excuses. Neither was I. When I asked if the victims had received physical exams, I was told that lots of people in Haiti don't get annual exams. I reminded the official that these boys had been raped and sodomized. Perlitz may have infected them with HIV or another sexually transmitted disease. When asked, neither official knew if all of the victims and other students had safe shelter to go to each each night. One of the officials told me that many Haitian kids sleep outdoors. I ve hemently objected by saying that some of the boys are exhausted when they begin school each day. Does a person just get used to shivering in the night because he is Haitian? Where do the boys wash themselves and brush their teeth? The officials agreed to interview each of the eighty six boys to establish a case file for each boy's needs.

Every two weeks, the eighty six boys are being provided with a two week supply of rice, beans and charcoal by Kids' Alive. This is what the boys asked for and Kids' Alive officials have accommodated their needs.

As I am writing, I have to wonder how many members of the Fairfield University community even care about the horrific harms and injuries inflicted upon these children. Many people ask, "What does the sexual abuse of children at a school in Haiti have to do with us?" Some members of the Fairfield University community appear more upset that the school's name is being tarnished than they care about offering care and support to those who were abused. As an example, I asked at least six alumni groups to help support the victims. I received only one response: "Delete my name from your list." At least one distinguished professor was more upset by my "methods" than he was at the actual abuse of the children and cover up.

Last, but not least, is Father Paul Carrier, S.J. Why does Carrier refuse to help us examine the causes and conditions that allowed so many children to be sexually abused for so many years? Will Carrier help the victims find a measure of justice by telling us the truth of what happened? What does he know (or not know). Why is Carrier hiding?

The very first thing I said to the boys when we met is "I want you to know how sorry I am for what happened to you." They need to keep hearing it wasn't their fault.

Further, I told them that there are tens of thousands of victims/survivors, supporters and child protection advocates throughout the world who thank you for your courage, support you and care about you.

The first of 22 civil lawsuits has been filed in federal court in Connecticut on behalf of the boys who were sexually abused by Perlitz.

May the truth be told and justice served.

Paul Kendrick
Freeport, Maine
Fairfield University '72
kendrickpt@aol.com
207 838 1319