An alumnus of St. Mary’s College Preparatory School in Manhasset has filed a lawsuit against the school and the religious order operating it saying that a guidance counselor sexually abused him dozens of times, and they knew that the counselor had a history of abusing other students.
Steven Gormley, 53, of Connecticut, was a resident of Long Beach when he entered the then-St. Mary’s High School for Boys as a freshman in 1981, according to a complaint filed under the Child Victims Act in Nassau County Supreme Court last week.
Upon entry into the then-all boys school, he was assigned Brother Robert Ryan, a member of the Marist Brothers of Schools, the religious order which operates St. Mary’s and other educational institutions across the country, as a guidance counselor.
“Brother Ryan, for the next two years, frequently exploited and abused that role by — often at least twice a week — pulling [Gormley] out of academic classes, taking him to his office, and sexually assaulting him,” the complaint reads.
Ryan is alleged to have sexually abused Gormley in his office at St. Mary’s 75 times from the beginning of his freshman year in September 1981 to his junior year in September 1983.
“Brother Ryan’s sexual assaults of [Gormley] were malicious and extremely vicious,” the complaint said. “He frequently sodomized [Gormley] with hardcore sadomasochistic objects, which caused [Gormley] to suffer severe pain, caused severe rectal bleeding, and left him with serious and irreparable rectal injuries, including deep and permanent rectal scars.”
Also alleged in the complaint is that Ryan forced Gormley to consume alcohol and sedatives, “in an effort to make [Gormley] more relaxed and/or compliant in connection with Brother Ryan’s anal rapes.” The complaint adds that the substance use forced by Ryan “severely impacted negatively [Gormley’s] academic performance and educational experience at St. Mary’s,” and that he suffered from serious drug and alcohol problems from 1982, his sophomore year of high school, through 2006.
The complaint also claims that Ryan allegedly sexually assaulted at least three other students in Gormley’s grade, “as well as numerous additional boys in other grades,” and allegedly developed a “notorious and unsavory reputation” and a nickname regarding his frequent inquisition of students’ masturbatory habits.
Gormley is being represented by attorneys Kevin T. Mulhearn of upstate Orangeburg and Jon L. Norinsberg of Manhattan, and filed the suit under the extended Child Victims Act, which opened a “look back window” for survivors of child sexual abuse to file a lawsuit against their alleged abuser up to age 55.
Over a decade after his experiences with Ryan, the complaint says, in 1993, upon learning that a family friend with an ill parent was preparing to attend the school as a freshman and becoming “extremely concerned that this young man would suffer a similar fate,” Gormley had an audience with the school’s then-principal, Brother Roy George, and told him that he had been raped by Ryan.
“Principal George reacted with sadness and empathy, but did not discuss with [Gormley] whether he and the school had ever heard of any similar prior allegations in connection with Brother Ryan,” the complaint reads.
On the same day, Gormley met with an individual identified in the complaint as Brother Phillip, a St. Mary’s High School official and staff member.
“Brother Phillip told [Gormley] that news of his abuse would devastate [Gormley’s] mother, a very religious woman,” the complaint reads. “Brother Phillip also told [Gormley] that [Gormley] did not need to hire an attorney, did not need to meet with the press or otherwise publicize his account of abuse, and should take care not to ‘escalate’ the situation. Brother Phillip also implored [Gormley] to ‘protect the Church.’ Brother Phillip told [Gormley] that if he took any aggressive action with respect to his sexual abuse claim, the school would be unable to provide a scholarship to the family friend in need.”
What Gormley claims the administration did not reveal was that Ryan had been brought to St. Mary’s following accusations of sexual abuse and sexual misconduct toward minors at previous positions in the Marist schools, including at Marist High School in Eugene, Oregon, and at Marist High School in Chicago, throughout the 1970s.
In a phone interview, Mulhearn said that this discovery, made in 2020 when a former student at the Oregon school filed suit against the Marist Brothers and alleged that Ryan had sexually abused him, prompted him and Gormley to pursue the case.
“I didn’t prepare the complaint in earnest until we realized that not only this has happened to Steve, but that Marist brothers knew or should have known what, what this guy was all about, because he had done it to other kids,” Mulhearn said.
“By 1979, therefore, [the Marist Brothers] had a duty to prevent Brother Ryan from having access to, and control and authority over, minor boys who attended Marist Brothers schools, anywhere in the United States,” the complaint reads, also claiming that the order had failed to notify parents, students or local authorities about Ryan’s past actions before he was transferred to St. Mary’s in 1979.
Shortly after speaking with George and Phillip, Gormley said, he was contacted by a Marist attorney who had drafted a settlement agreement that would provide a full scholarship to the family friend and a sum of $15,000 in counseling expenses for Gormley himself.
The Marist Brothers also “promised to never again let Brother Ryan associate or interact with children,” but did not at any point disclose Ryan’s prior history at the Oregon and Chicago schools. Gormley then signed a general release from any and all future claims against Ryan and Marist Brothers with these terms in the summer of 1993, but alleges in the complaint that he was in a visible state of inebriation that was “obvious and apparent” to those present as he signed it.
Gormley’s attorneys claim that the agreement was breached since the Marist Brothers allowed Ryan to work at a children’s camp in New Hampshire in 1993 and 1994. Ryan died in 2017.
In 2006, Gormley was contacted by an investigator identified as Lester Amann who offered additional compensation for his abuse. Amann allegedly told Gormley that he did not need a lawyer, and that he “did not want to cause pain to [Gormley’s] mother by publicly revealing his sexual abuse.” Later that year Gormley was paid $40,000, also receiving a formal apology from the then-provincial of the Marist Brothers, but he maintains that he was inebriated at the time of that signing as well, and was still not told of Ryan’s past.
The attorneys argue in the complaint that the school and the Marist Brothers were “in reckless and conscious disregard of the rights, health, and safety of [Gormley], and were so malicious, willful, and wanton as to constitute a grievous injury to the public-at-large” and “give rise to punitive damages.”
Mulhearn said that he had sent a draft notice of the complaint to the current provincial leader of the Marist Brothers on Feb. 17, but has heard nothing from St. Mary’s or the Marist Brothers.
Efforts to reach the Marist Brothers and St. Mary’s for comment were unavailing.
A dollar amount for damages was not named in the complaint. Mulhearn said that as he and the other attorneys present the case, they will ask the jury to put a value on it.
“I mean, there’s no money that can make this wrong right,” Mulhearn said.
