Man traces priest he says abused him 55 years ago

For more than a decade, Ernie Cox went online to search the faces of priests who had been accused of child sexual abuse, looking for one man.

He’d seen the priest on only one day in the late 1960s when, the former altar boy alleges, the priest sexually abused him before and after mass at a Contra Costa County church. The boy was 12. The priest was visiting Immaculate Heart of Mary from another parish, and Cox, now 67, didn’t remember his name.

A few weeks ago, a friend who knew of Cox’s experience forwarded him a recent story in The Chronicle about allegations against a priest at the same parish in the small city of Brentwood. When Cox later found the late Father John G. Garcia’s face in an old black-and-white photo on the website of a local newspaper, he said, he was stricken by recognition. No other priest’s picture had ever caused such a reaction.

“I felt really sick,” Cox recalled, “because those eyes … scared me a lot.”

Cox is the fourth known person to raise allegations against Garcia, who hadn’t been publicly accused until a Dec. 9 story in The Chronicle detailed the case of a man named Derek Lewis, who said he was abused by Garcia in the 1990s. Like Lewis, Cox has now filed suit against Immaculate Heart and the Roman Catholic Diocese of Oakland, a suit made possible by a law expanding the statute of limitations for victims of child abuse to sue through the end of 2022.

On Dec. 15, Beverly Hills attorney Michael Carney filed a separate suit for a 55-year-old man who says a priest believed to be the same John G. Garcia molested him in 1974 at a different parish.

Helen Osman, a spokesperson for the Oakland diocese, has previously said the diocese couldn’t release personnel records and wasn’t aware of any allegations against Garcia until

Lewis filed suit. The diocese, along with Immaculate Heart, didn’t respond to an email seeking comment on Cox’s allegations.

Churchgoers who worshiped under Garcia have described him as a beloved figure and devoted priest who they never suspected could be capable of what the men allege.

While such eyewitness identifications, particularly many years after a traumatic event, can be perilous to rely on solely, it isn’t just the picture that leads Cox to believe Garcia — who was ordained in 1947 and who died in 2003 at the age of 83 — was the priest who abused him. He points to similar details from Lewis’ account, Garcia’s proximity at the time of his assault, and the fact that Garcia is the only known priest who served at Immaculate Heart to be accused of child abuse.

Cox said he believes the priest who abused him was visiting from nearby because he seemed to know the church grounds well. Cox believes it was 1967. That year, Garcia was assigned to a church in Oakley, five miles from Immaculate Heart, according to a work history compiled by the Oakland chapter of the nonprofit Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP.

Cox’s lawsuit is one amid a flurry filed as the Dec. 31 deadline to file suits under Assembly Bill 218 arrived. The 2019 state law extended for three years the statute of limitations for victims to sue their abuser or abuser’s employer, clearing the way for suits from people under 40 through the end of 2022; the typical cutoff age is 26. Officials expect more than 1,000 clergy abuse suits to be filed in Northern California before the year ends.

Though Cox is over 40, his suit could go forward due to statutes allowing late filings if a mental health professional submits a declaration attesting that the claims of abuse appear to have merit. A judge must agree for the complaint to proceed.

Cox has already been evaluated by a clinical psychologist who found he had a credible claim, said Cox’s attorney, Terry Gross of San Francisco.

Separately, Dr. Paul Abramson, a UCLA professor of psychology with 40 years of experience working with child abuse survivors, said he finds Cox credible. Abramson, who serves as a psychological expert witness for victims, spoke to The Chronicle with Cox’s permission.

Abramson, who is also working with Lewis, said he was struck by how many details from both men’s stories align, down to the behavior of the priest and the locations on the church grounds where the alleged abuse took place.

Like Lewis, Cox said the abuse traumatized him and led to decades of grief, confusion, shame and addiction.

Cox said he’s always felt the priest killed a piece of him — some indescribable but vital piece — that he’s been trying to reclaim ever since.

‘You will die’

Ernie Cox was running a paper route for the Brentwood News, the local weekly newspaper his parents owned, when a buddy recruited him to be an altar boy at Immaculate Heart.

Ernie knew this made his devout Mexican grandmother proud, and he was proud to work with the priests whom he revered as messengers of God.

Things changed one day when a priest visited to say Mass.

Shortly after the man arrived, Cox would later allege, he took the boy in his arms and molested him inside the church.

Ernie’s mind sped, trying to understand how a man wearing a priest’s robe could be doing something that felt so wrong to him.

The priest then said Mass as Ernie assisted and tried not to shake. He loudly scratched the inside of a bell he meant to ring. The priest glared at the boy.

After Mass, the priest walked Ernie to the building housing the office and rectory where, Cox alleges, the man raped him.

The priest allegedly told Ernie it would be a grievous sin to tell anyone.

“You will die if you speak of this,” Cox recalled the man saying, in an echo of a similar statement Lewis said he remembers Garcia making three decades later. “Bad things will happen to people close to you.”

Buried, unearthed

Ernie rode his bike home and, believing the priest, told no one.

He said he began to fear that other men — doctors, teachers, coaches, even his father — could suddenly decide to sexually assault him. Men in authority gave him a cold feeling and upset his stomach.

He started drinking at 14.

As he grew older, he kept memories of the priest tucked in a dusty, far-off corner of his mind. For decades, it mostly worked, he said, though he drank more and more and still had episodes when something he couldn’t place made him anxious or angry. He couldn’t trust. He couldn’t connect.

The weight of what he had sought to bury started to overtake him around 2013, 46 years from that day at Immaculate Heart. Nightmares of the abuse and the priest’s face tormented him. Flashbacks pursued him in the day.

Cox, a longtime advertising and marketing executive, was drinking heavily and using Valium. Cox said he developed chronic medical problems from addiction and was hospitalized from an overdose.

As he made progress in therapy and attended recovery meetings, Cox said he slowly began to tell people about the alleged abuse. He told his elderly father, siblings and his college roommate.

All were supportive when Cox started searching photos of abusive priests on BishopAccountability.org. Garcia’s face wasn’t there yet.

The face

In December, Cox’s college roommate forwarded him The Chronicle’s story on Derek Lewis and his accusations against Garcia.

Cox said he felt sick when he saw the man’s photo and read how Garcia allegedly abused Lewis and damaged his young life. Convinced that Garcia was the priest who violated him, Cox wanted to stop reading. He thought he could have saved Lewis from abuse in the 1990s if he’d spoken up about the abuse when it allegedly happened in the 1960s. “I felt guilty,” Cox said. He tried to remind himself that coming forward immediately was a lot to ask of a 12-year-old altar boy who’d been told by a priest that he or loved ones would die if he revealed the abuse.

Made aware of Cox’s feelings of guilt, Lewis said he understood completely why Cox waited to come forward: It’s monumentally difficult. “I don’t think he should feel guilty at all,” Lewis said.

Cox said he resolved to try to help Lewis now. Cox said he assumed he couldn’t file his own suit because he was well past AB218’s age-40 cutoff. He called Lewis’ lawyer, offering to serve as a witness to bolster Lewis’ case.

When he learned the law could allow a suit, Cox said he decided to sue so he could form a chorus with Lewis and any other victims. This, Cox figured, would raise the volume of the alarm about abusive priests and empower other victims, especially younger ones, to come forward and get help sooner before a lifetime of grief and terror batters them.

At 67 years old, retired in Georgia, far from Contra Costa County, Cox said he still feels the fingerprints of the priest on his mind and life. He remembers the comfort religion gave him before he met the priest, and he wants it back.

On Thanksgiving, he went to church, searching for peace. Before he found it, he rose from his seat and walked out.

“I just couldn’t stay,” he said.

Kendrick Brinson/Special to The Chronicle Ernie Cox of Athens, Ga., says he was sexually abused by a Contra Costa County priest when he was an altar boy in the 1960s.

Kendrick Brinson/Special to The Chronicle Ernie Cox, 67, says he was abused in the 1960s by a Contra Costa County priest who has since died. Cox, who now lives in Georgia, says he feels the priest killed a piece of him that he’s been trying to reclaim ever since.