The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
For victims, abuse has lifelong impact
It’s been 50 years since Joey Piscitelli says he was sexually abused at the former San Pablo Boys’ Club in Richmond, California, and to this day, he said the trauma keeps him up at night.
Insomnia and symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder began shortly after Piscitelli said he was threatened and silenced by an adult who learned of his abuse. Despite years of therapy, the impact has not subsided.
Piscitelli’s abuse began his first day of high school, he said in an interview with Hearst Connecticut Media, with an adult he trusted offering to play pingpong with him in the club during school hours.
The boys’ club was run by the Salesian Society, a religious organization that now operates another Boys & Girls Clubs of America affiliate in the same location known as the West Contra Costa Salesian Boys & Girls Club. Piscitelli also attended a private high school adjacent to the club that was run by the Salesian Society.
A civil lawsuit alleges that the Rev. Steve Whelan, then the vice principal of the high school, sexually abused Piscitelli in the club’s game room in front of Salvatore Billante, the
club's director at the time.
“(Whelan) asked me to play ping pong in the club,” said Piscitelli. “When we were playing, I turned around at one point and he was masturbating in front of me while (Billante) was watching me. (Billante) said, ‘I want you to stay there.’ I stood there, frozen. I didn't know what to do or say.”
The abuse continued and escalated, Piscitelli claims. He said he was molested and raped multiple times after the first instance of abuse.
When Piscitelli was 14, he said he told a therapist he saw at school that he was being sexually abused. The therapist told a school administrator about the disclosure, Piscitelli said, and that administrator told him no one would believe him. The survivor said he was told it would be his word against the adults’ and that he would be kicked out of school if he told anyone else.
“I believed (him),” Piscitelli said. “I was scared to death.”
In 2006, a civil jury found that the club and Whelan were equally at fault for Piscitelli’s abuse.
Billante, who testified that he didn't witness the abuse in the civil case, was convicted of sexually abusing a child in an unrelated case in the 1980s.
The Salesian Society and the West Contra Costa Salesian Boys & Girls Club did not respond to requests for comment on the case. Attempts to reach Billante and Whelan for comment were unsuccessful.
After coming forward, Piscitelli learned other boys say they were abused at the club.
“I think it was the culture,” he said. “We weren't supervised well because the person in charge was a molester.”
Testimonies made by some of the more than 250 people who say they were sexually abused as children at the hands of employees, volunteers and other members of Boys & Girls Club of America affiliates found in a Hearst Connecticut Media investigation describe similar difficulties coping with trauma.
Six men who say they were assaulted and raped as children by an underage counselor at the former Greenwich Boys’ Club said in affidavits filed in an ongoing civil suit that their abuse left permanent emotional scars.
“Over the years, I have battled with drug and alcohol abuse, have had criminal arrests, and have lived, and continue to live, with deep shame, humiliation, remorse, embarrassment, anger, depression and other serious consequences, which I believe are directly related to (my) sexual abuse,” said one victim. “I am now recently sober, though I still struggle with the trauma and psychological issues that I believe were caused by … sexual abuse.”
Another alleged victim in the Greenwich case said in an affidavit that the memory of seeing another boy leave the locker room where much of the abuse allegedly took place still haunts him 40 years later.
“He had tears in his eyes,” he said of the other victim. “He looked broken, and his head was hanging down … At the time, I remember the feeling that I knew that (Andrew) Atkinson was doing bad stuff to boys that were not normal and shouldn't be happening.”
An attorney representing Boys & Girls Club of Greenwich declined a request for comment on the case in August. Previously, the club’s attorneys have denied wrongdoing in court filings. Administrators for the club have said the safety of the children they serve is their number one priority.
A 5yearold girl who was sexually assaulted by an 11yearold under the supervision of Madison Square Boys & Girls Club Brooklyn branch’s care on a 2003 outing to a restaurant appeared “angry and sad often,” according to statements her mother made to a therapist filed in a civil lawsuit that was settled. After the assault, the girl complained to her mother that no one loved her and that she felt “worthless or inferior,” according to the document.
An attorney for Madison Square Boys & Girls Club declined to comment on the case in August. The organization has previously said it takes any allegations of child sexual abuse seriously.
A man who was molested and raped in the early 1990s by Andrew Brown, a former program director at thenHudson Boys & Girls Club in Massachusetts, said the abuse impacted the trajectory of his future.
“Throughout my high school years, in hindsight, I realize that I was in a state of depression. I missed a lot of school and became much more withdrawn,” he said in documents filed in a civil case that was dismissed after an apparent settlement. “I … began to miss school so often, my academic performance suffered greatly. I began to feel inferior to my peers and at times felt stupid and worthless.”
The man said he also experienced difficulties forming relationships during and after the abuse.
“I did not feel normal,” he said. “I believed I was different from other kids.”
Chris Duane, president and CEO of the Boys & Girls Club of MetroWest, the entity that the Hudson club has since merged into, did not comment on the specifics of the case when reached in August. He listed the current club’s safety procedures.
Attempts to reach Brown through his attorney were unsuccessful.
A 10yearold girl who was sexually assaulted by an employee of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Wayne County in North Carolina wrote about the abuse in a passage that was entered into evidence in a criminal case in which her abuser was convicted.
“The worst thing that ever happened to me was that I was being touched by a man,” she wrote. “I didn’t want to tell my mom or my brother because I was scared.”
Boys & Girls Clubs of Wayne County Executive Director Mary Ann Dudley declined to comment on the specifics of the case in July, but listed the club’s safety protocols.
Piscitelli said he is often questioned about why he waited decades to file a civil claim.
“People ask me why I waited so long,” he said. “It was different from today. Back then, there was no mention of it. Maybe that’s why it was so rampant, and nobody was saying anything about it.”