MORRISTOWN — The former spiritual head of the Delbarton School told lawyers investigating the elite prep school that he destroyed a letter accusing a teacher of sexual assault to protect the privacy of the alleged victim.
But Abbot Brian Clarke, who died in 2019, also acknowledged he got rid of the letter knowing it “would be bad for the reputation of the school to have sex abuse associated with it,” according to a deposition read in court on Thursday.
Clarke’s words were read into the record during the Sept. 25 session at the Morris County Courthouse, as the trial continued against Delbarton and the order of Benedictine Catholic brothers that run the highly rated all-boys school.
The former student, referred to during the trial as T.M., is also suing the adjactent St. Mary’s Abbey monastery and his alleged abuser, the Rev. Richard Lott. T.M., who graduted in 1977, says he was 15 at the time of the violation. He says he’s suffered lifelong damage as a result, affecing his career prospects, relationships and religious faith.
All of the defendants have denied wrongdoing.
In this 1975 Daily Record photo, Rev. Richard Edward Lott, right, stands in the Delbarton garden he tended with T.M., then a Delbarton student. T.M. says Lott sexually abused him about three months later in a barn on the school campus.
The landmark trial is significant as the first of hundreds of civil sexual abuse cases against the Catholic Church to go to a jury in New Jersey. It’s also the first trial among 39 lawsuits against the prestigious school, where celebrities and other well-heeled parents send their sons to be educated for an annual $48,000 tuition.
In addition to the more than three dozen lawsuits pending, several cases against the school and order have been settled. In 2018, the abbey sent a letter to the school community revealing that 13 monks had been accused of sexually abusing 30 people over the prior three decades.
T.M.’s previous testimony recounted the events of his alleged assault, which he says occurred after Lott, then a chemistry teacher and head of maintenance at Delbarton, took him to an off-campus New Year’s Eve party in 1975. Lott got him drunk, T.M. said, before bringing him back to the cleric’s quarters in a campus maintenance barn, where the abuse allegedly occurred.
The trauma from that night “follows me around like a dark cloud,” T.M. testified earlier this week.
Not the only accuser
Clarke was elected head of St. Mary’s Abbey in 1975 and served until he retired 20 years later. His deposition was read to the eight-member jury by a defense attorney. In it, Clarke acknowledged there were accusations by students of clergy sex abuse both before and after T.M.’s encounter, none of which was reported to police.
T.M. testified that shortly after graduating in 1977, he sent a letter to Clarke detailing the abuse. In a follow-up meeting, he said, Clarke revealed to him that Lott had confessed to everything.
More: As a teen, this former Delbarton student trusted a priest. Then came the alleged sex abuse
But Clarke, in his deposition, said that Lott had denied the abuse. Clarke also testified that T.M. had asked him to keep his accusations anonymous. Lott’s denial further tied the abbot’s hands in terms of dismissing the priest or even removing him from the classroom, Clarke told attorneys.
Clarke kept the letter for years until he learned from a doctor that he was terminally ill. Still committed to T.M.’s request for privacy, Clarke said he destroyed the letter to ensure it did not surface after his death.
Lott continued to deny the abuse and eventually left the order after a leave of absence. Now an 89-year-old, he took the stand Sept. 17 and said he could not have assaulted T.M. because he was at a Jersey Shore church on the night of the alleged incident.
It was unclear how Clarke’s testimony helped the defense case, but notably, the deceased abbot is not a named defendant.
Another alleged victim testifies
The jury also heard another deposition read into the record Thursday from a former resident of the sprawling Delbarton campus, located just three miles from the historic courthouse where the trial is being held. That witness, one of nine children of a maintenance director who lived on campus, said he also reported Lott had abused him as a teen, around 1963. He testified that he reported the offense to Clarke, then a Delbarton teacher.
“He said he would take care of it,” said the witness, whose name was withheld to protect his privacy.
The gallery in the courtroom included several of T.M.’s supporters, including others who say they were abused by clergy members, some at Delbarton.
The trial is scheduled to continue on Sept. 29.
This article originally appeared on Morristown Daily Record: Delbarton trial: Abbot admitted destroying letter about sex abuse