The Diocese of Texas is a defendant in a $45-million class-action lawsuit which alleges that for more than 40 years, diocesan officials have tried to hide the fact that one of the priests on staff at St. Stephen’s Episcopal School in Austin sexually abused students at the residential school.
According to the transcript from a pre-trial hearing in 2008, James Lydell Tucker served as chaplain at St. Stephen’s from 1958 to1968. The diocese transferred him to another school in 1968 after receiving misconduct complaints about him. He retired from active ministry in 1994. He was deposed from the ordained ministry of The Episcopal Church in 2008.
“The world was a bizarre place,” said Bob Haslanger, as reported by the Houston Press. “Having to deal with this person who was perhaps the most popular faculty member on campus in public, who acted as though nothing was odd, and then once a month or more he would come into my room and molest me. Well, wow, that’s more than my little, young, teenage brain could handle.”
Mr. Haslanger first reported the sexual abuse in 1966 during a meeting with Allen Becker, the headmaster at St. Stephen’s. After a second student complained to Mr. Becker in 1968, the school announced that Mr. Tucker was leaving St. Stephen’s because of heart problems.
David Evert, one of the plaintiffs who complained to Mr. Becker in 1968, said that the headmaster ordered him and the other student, not to tell anyone about Mr. Tucker, not even their parents. The lawsuit alleges that Mr. Becker did not object two years later when Mr. Tucker became rector of St. James’, Houston. Some of the plaintiffs to the class-action lawsuit claim that Mr. Tucker abused children at St. James’ as well.
The rest is here-
http://www.livingchurch.org/news/news-updates/2009/5/21/diocese-of-texas-faces-45-million-lawsuit
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