Three more men filed civil lawsuits yesterday against the Rev. Ronald H. Paquin accusing him of sexually assaulting them when they were boys attending St. John the Baptist Church in Haverhill in the 1980s.

The victims are expected to testify for each other in separate trials, said their lawyer, Jeffrey A. Newman of Marblehead. Newman also filed a civil suit against Paquin last week on behalf of another alleged victim, now a 26-year-old Haverhill man.

The lawsuits filed yesterday allege that Paquin induced the boys to perform sexual acts on him and, in two of the cases, on other boys. "He'd get them intoxicated and caused them to have sex with other children for his own sexual gratification," Newman said of some of the incidents.

Paquin was a priest at St. John's in the 1980s and at St. Monica's Church in Methuen before that. The Catholic Archdiocese of Boston is also listed as a defendant in the suits.

Newman said the victims named in the suits yesterday contacted him after learning of the suit filed by the 26-year-old last week. The latest victims to step forward are also in their 20s, Newman said.

Criminal charges in Essex County against Paquin are still pending, though investigations by prosecutors in New Hampshire are under way, Newman said. He said the victims told him that Paquin took them to New Hampshire, Maine, Vermont, Canada and Cape Cod and molested them there.

Essex County District Attorney Kevin M. Burke would not confirm whether he is interviewing the victims, considering charges or studying the statue of limitations law.

"It's an ongoing investigation, and we are not commenting on this," said Burke's spokesman, Stephen F. O'Connell.

Newman said he has been told by law enforcement officials that criminal charge are likely. Newman said he is not involved with any criminal investigation but at least one of his clients has chosen to talk to police and prosecutors.

Paquin, 59, of Malden, has admitted to newspapers that he did molest children while at St. John's and at St. Monica's Church in Methuen.

While four alleged victims have sued so far, Newman said eight former St. John parishioners have hired him. Another three are considering retaining him, he said.

Newman said all but two of the 11 victims were all altar boys from 1982 to 1992, and most did not know each other. In fact, some thought they were the only one Paquin molested.

"He seemed to gravitate to one or two at a time," Newman said. "They'd get older, and he'd hook into some of these other kids."

Two of the victims were not members of the church. One was a neighborhood boy, and the other was a boy from another city who was in Haverhill visiting a friend, Newman said.

"None of the victims I have know each other," Newman said. "All the victims thought they were the only victims, except the two who were caused to have sex with other children."

Newman believes there may be more victims who have not come forward. He encouraged all of them to report possible abuse to police.

While dozens of priests have been accused of molesting boys, Paquin is one of the few whose alleged crimes may fall within the statute of limitations. The statue of limitations for rape of a child in Massachusetts was extended from 10 to 15 years, starting from the date on which the alleged victim turned 16 or from the first report to law enforcement. Paquin's accuser who filed suit last week was 16 years old in 1992.

Meanwhile, St. John parishioners are steadfastly participating in the Christian Easter holiday season, and at least one church leader is undaunted by the legal process that could drag on for years.

"I don't think a lot of people at St. John's dwell on this," said Joan L. Cranton, 60, a religious studies teacher at the church. "He's something in the past. We have other things to keep us busy other than Father Paquin."

Paquin served at St. John the Baptist church during the 1980s after being transferred from St. Monica's Church in Methuen. Newman said all eight of his clients are from the Haverhill church, as well as the three potential clients. He represents about 75 total victims in suits filed against Catholic clergy, all stemming from the recent rash of priests accused of sexual misdeeds in the Archdiocese.

Burke has received a list of 17 former or current priests in the Archdiocese accused of molesting children, including Paquin. Former Haverhill priest Kelvin Iguabita of All Saints Church was also on the list, charged with raping a 15-year-old girl on church property in 2000. Haverhill High Latin teacher Paul D. White was accused in a 1998 civil suit of molesting a boy while White was a priest in the 1960s, but White denies the charge. The Archdiocese settled that case.

HAVERHILL -- James M. "Jimmy" Francis was a 16-year-old Haverhill High hockey player with thoughts of entering the priesthood -- but he never got the chance.

Francis was one of four teen-age boys from St. John the Baptist Church who accompanied the Rev. Ronald H. Paquin on what turned out to be a fatal weekend trip to a private chalet in New Hampshire early one Saturday morning 20 years ago.

Paquin lost control of his car Nov. 28, 1981, on an icy stretch of Interstate 93, causing it to flip. Francis was killed when he was thrown and pinned underneath the car.

Twenty years later, the Francis family is left to wonder what may have been if the Archdiocese of Boston had not reassigned Paquin from St. Monica's Church in Methuen to St. John in Haverhill in 1981 -- months before the crash. The reassignment came as allegations swirled that the priest had molested children at the Methuen church.

Yesterday Harold F. Francis Jr. told The Eagle-Tribune that it is too difficult emotionally for him and his wife, Sheila A. Francis, to discuss their son and the crash that claimed his life.

Francis' parents still live at their son's childhood home -- 51 Madison St., just a few blocks from St. John the Baptist Church in Haverhill's Riverside neighborhood. Yesterday Harold Francis said the situation involving his son's death is too painful to talk about -- now that Paquin has publicly admitted to raping children at the churches.

"It's been 20 years and we don't want to go through this again. It's too hard," Harold Francis said.

He said his wife breaks down just talking about their son's death, and the family declined to discuss Paquin.

The 59-year-old Paquin, who has publicly admitted to raping young parishioners at churches in Haverhill and Methuen, is at the center of the latest molestation allegations involving the archdiocese.

Just after the accident, Paquin called Francis "an outstanding boy" who was interested in joining the priesthood. The boy had taken a trip to St. John's Seminary with Paquin.

"I changed his life and he changed mine. It was just beautiful," Paquin said in a Haverhill Gazette article that was published Nov. 30, 1981 -- two days after the fatal crash.

Three other teen-agers -- ages 13 and 14 at the time -- survived the wreck. None of the people who were involved in the 1981 accident would publicly discuss it or Paquin yesterday.

The priest had taken the four boys to a private chalet in Bethlehem, N.H., as a reward for their starting up a child youth group. They were trying to get home early Saturday so the boys could catch a train from Bradford to North Station to see a Boston Bruins hockey game.

The priest talked about how his "friendship just grew and grew" with James Francis in the six months since they met.

Paquin told The Gazette that Francis had "been getting a little serious about becoming a priest."

HAVERHILL -- Two weeks ago, the Rev. Frederick E. Sweeney marked 50 years in the priesthood with a celebration of friends and parishioners from his St. John the Baptist Church.

During the celebration, James A. Rurak -- former mayor and a longtime St. John parishioner -- referred to Sweeney's ability to come into a parish that presented many challenges when he arrived and took over as pastor in 1990. Although Rurak did not explain his remarks, many parishioners say they knew he was talking about Sweeney's role in getting rid of former St. John's priest Ronald H. Paquin, who is now 59.

Now that Sweeney, 75, has taken his first vacation since coming to St. John's just over a decade ago, his parish is reeling from the news that Paquin may have molested several boys during his 20 years as a parish priest, including his time at St. John's in Haverhill and St. Monica's in Methuen.

Several people involved with St. John the Baptist Church who were contacted by The Eagle-Tribune credited Sweeney with being the whistleblower who finally ended years of abuse by Paquin.

"This is a terrible thing. It's his very first vacation," said the Rev. Edmund P. Charest yesterday, as he filled in at St. John's with Sweeney on vacation in Florida. "He blew the whistle. They got Paquin out of here."

Catholic churches like St. John's typically have a pastor, who is the head priest, and one or more other priests. Sweeney, who became pastor of St. John's in 1990, immediately told Paquin, who was still a priest at St. John's, that he would have to "get help" or face consequences from the archdiocese, parishioners said. As a result, Paquin left for a program that specializes in the treatment of priests with sexual-abuse problems. Since then, he has not been assigned to a parish, according to reports.

At the time, parishioners praised Sweeney for taking such a decisive role in eliminating years of doubt and mistrust among people who attended St. John's.

Another Haverhill pastor also played a key role in attempting to unseat Paquin from his post as a parish priest. The Rev. Dennis T. Nason, then vicar of the area and pastor of St. Ann's Church in West Newbury, said that sometime before 1990 he received a complaint about Paquin from a woman at St. John's. She reported acts of sexual misconduct concerning Paquin and two to three Haverhill boys whom Paquin took to Boston. Nason, now pastor of All Saints Parish, immediately contacted Bishop Alfred Hughes and the pastor of St. John the Baptist, who at that time was Sweeney's predecessor. Nason said he does not recall the pastor's name. Hughes now serves as the archbishop of New Orleans.

"They said they were going to look into this," Nason said yesterday. "Shortly thereafter (when Sweeney arrived and took over as pastor of St. John's), he was removed," Nason said of Paquin.

Nason said he never heard anything from the woman caller or the bishop following his initial conversations. Hughes, the bishop, also learned of Paquin's tainted reputation from parishioners who met with him about selecting a new pastor prior to Paquin's departure.

Nason is also dealing with a painful situation at his All Saints Parish. The Rev. Kelvin E. Iguabita, 33, formerly of All Saints, is free on bail after being charged with raping a 15-year-old girl on All Saints property in 2000.

This is the second major news story involving a parish for Charest, who is filling in for Sweeney at St. John's and will celebrate 41 years as a priest Feb. 2. Last summer, he was filling in at a church in Kingston, Mass., when parishioner Jonathan Rizzo was murdered in a killing spree. Then and now, he said, he is trying to reach out to bewildered and hurting churchgoers while fielding questions from the media and jockeying television cameras on the church steps.

"As priests, we still have to do our job," he said yesterday.

As he says Masses this weekend, Charest said, he can only guess which eyes belong to Paquin's former victims.

"I have no idea who the victims are. Whoever goes to church will be looking out wondering," he said. "Their pain has been rekindled."

http://www.eagletribune.com/news/stories/20020127/HA_001.htm

Rumors Began Soon After Arrival

January 27, 2002

By Anita Perkins
Eagle-Tribune Writer

HAVERHILL -- When a priest's position became vacant at St. John the Baptist Church in 1981, parishioners were happy to see an immaculate, impeccably groomed man show up to take the post.

Transferred from St. Monica's in Methuen, the Rev. Ronald H. Paquin, then 39, was described as a slightly built man of short stature -- but an intelligent man who taught theology classes and took teen-age boys on ski trips. Although most saw him as an "ordinary fella," parishioners also recall a man who failed to make eye contact and soon became the subject of rumors, speculation and complaints.

Just four months after his arrival at the parish in the tight-knit Riverside section of the city across from Haverhill Stadium and next to Hale Hospital, Paquin was involved in a fatal car crash that claimed the life of a teen-age boy from the parish. Although no charges were filed against Paquin, rumors began to swirl around the circumstances of that trip to a mountain chalet in New Hampshire.

Parishioners who were active in the church now express their disgust and sorrow that so many of the rumors and repeated complaints to church officials appeared to fall on deaf ears. Now that documents kept secret by the Catholic Archdiocese of Boston have been released, the papers show that Paquin left a trail of victims over a 20-year period of abuse of minors. Although parishioners were told that Paquin left "for further studies," the archdiocese removed him from active ministry in 1990.

At first, Paquin was praised for his work with teen-age boys at St. John's. But one parishioner and former religious education teacher said she heard that girls in religious classes constantly complained about him. The teacher recalled stories that the girls felt Paquin only related to the boys.

"A lot of people stopped going to St. John's at the time because they didn't feel comfortable with this man," said Joan L. Cranton of Eastland Terrace, a longtime parishioner who is active in various St. John's activities, including distributing Communion at Masses. "He wasn't an easy man to feel comfortable with."

In November 1981, shortly after his arrival at St. John's, Paquin took four boys ages 13 to 17 on a trip to the mountains of New Hampshire for the weekend. Parishioners were told at the time that the car Paquin was driving hit black ice and careened out of control on a New Hampshire interstate. None of the occupants was wearing seat belts, according to parishioners' memories. James M. Francis, 16, was killed when he was thrown from the car and pinned underneath the vehicle.

Cranton said she and other parishioners couldn't understand why the archdiocese failed to transfer Paquin to another parish after the accident. She said people felt sorry for the parents having to see the priest every week.

Paquin, with a small scar from the accident on his forehead, even celebrated the boy's funeral Mass at St. John's, where he talked more about his time with the boy rather than the accident victim's own life, according to parishioners.

"All he talked about was himself and his relationship with this kid," Cranton said. "Hey, he didn't even know him (the boy) until four months earlier."

Following the accident, rumors and gossip about Paquin continued. Parishioners say some of them questioned him for having a teen-age boy live with him in the rectory. When confronted by one woman, he explained that the boy came from a "troubled family," parishioners said.

About the same time, money was missing from the weekly collection, parishioners said. They said they had no proof that Paquin was taking the cash, but Cranton and another woman parishioner who asked not to be named said they heard he may have been blackmailed by the boy living in the rectory. They said they had information that Paquin bought the boy a car, took him on trips and paid for his apartment at some point. They said the weekly collection, which had dropped to $600 to $800 a week, increased to $2,000 to $3,000 after Paquin left the parish in 1991.

After the St. John's pastor who had been serving there with Paquin died, another priest came in to temporarily fill the pastor's position. Parishioners said Paquin, when speaking from the pulpit at Mass, would say negative things about the new priest. That priest left after four months in the parish.

"Paquin said (the new priest) left because he had a sick mother, but I'm sure he saw the situation and couldn't take it," Cranton said.

Cranton and other parishioners then met with Bishop Alfred Hughes to discuss a new pastor for St. John's after the death of the previous pastor. When Hughes said he wanted to promote Paquin to pastor, Cranton strongly protested. She said she told the bishop that St. John's had deteriorated during Paquin's time there. She said she also told him, "There's something wrong with this man." Others supported her doubts about Paquin and the bishop assigned the Rev. Frederick E. Sweeney as pastor in 1990. He is credited with having Paquin removed from St. John's.

Copyright© 2002 Eagle-Tribune Publishing. All Rights Reserved.

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