I loved him - Abuse victim

2006-01-27 08:07

Los Angeles - A sexual abuse victim wept in court as he told of his love for the priest he said betrayed him, and his belief that he failed to protect his younger brothers from similar abuse.

"I can accept that I was abused but I can't accept the fact that I was the gatekeeper, that I let it happen to my brothers," said the man identified only as Mark B.

"Every day I look at my brothers and realise it was my responsibility," he said. "I could have called the police. I just didn't have the courage to say anything."

The 42-year-old man, who now lives in Norway, came to the witness stand as a prosecutor prepared to call to the stand his youngest brother, Jayson, the sole victim who claims he was abused during a period for which the priest, Michael Wempe, can be charged criminally.

The former priest has admitted he molested 13 boys in the 1970s and '80s but has not been tried in those cases because of a US Supreme Court ruling barring retroactive extension of the statute of limitations on old cases.

Defence attorneys maintain the older brothers helped Jayson fabricate a story of later abuse in order to punish Wempe for his earlier behaviour.

But Mark testified he never spoke to Jayson about his own abuse and was "floored" when he heard the youngest brother might have been abused.

He described Jayson as "a happy kid until he was 6 or 7 and he became very withdrawn."

Jayson, who is now 26, claims he was molested by Wempe in the 1990s after the former priest returned from therapy and was assigned by Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony to be the Catholic chaplain at Cedars Sinai Medical Centre.

His older brother Mark was the seventh and most emotional of the victims to testify so far.

Mark said he had completely repressed all memories of his abuse until June 2001, when he was on the way to his brother's wedding.

He said his brother Lee had invited Wempe to participate.

"I was getting ready for the wedding and something clicked. I was getting visual pieces of a puzzle in my head, like snapshots of abuse," he recalled." It all came rushing out like a waterfall."

He had kept the secrets well, he said, because Wempe meant so much to him and his family.

"I loved the guy," he said, burying his face in his hands and weeping.

Wempe, seated across the courtroom, flushed bright red.

As court recessed for the day, Wempe began to sob and covered his eyes with a handkerchief. Wempe denies that he abused Jayson.

Mark told how the priest became a surrogate father to him and his brothers. He said his mother "adored him".

"She felt he was our connection to God. He was our spiritual ticket."

Meanwhile, he said Wempe was taking him on motorcycle trips where he would fondle him.

- AP