The trial of fallen former priest John Geoghan commenced yesterday in Cambridge, with the plaintiff taking the stand to accuse the priest of sexually molesting him 10 years ago.
The plaintiff, now 20 and a junior in college, said he was practicing diving at the Waltham Boys and Girls Club in the Fall of 1991 when he was approached by the defendant, John J. Geoghan, a local priest whom he had seen around his neighborhood.
Geoghan allegedly offered to help the boy learn to dive and then watched him practice for about 15 minutes. The plaintiff said he was proceeding to get out of the pool when he felt Geoghan, who was swimming alongside him, squeeze his buttocks.
“He asked me if I wanted help learning to dive,” he said. “He was to the left of me in the water. I felt his hand going up the back of my leg. It went up my right leg and reached my butt and my butt was squeezed.”
Under a cross-examination by the defense, the plaintiff was unable to remember his age or grade level at the time of the incident.
The plaintiff’s mother followed with a testimony describing the boy’s reactions following the alleged assault.
She said she was in the shallow end of the pool while her son was swimming in the deep end. As the free swim session came to a close, she said the plaintiff approached her about wanting to leave and get home. On the walk back from the pool, the plaintiff appeared anxious to get home, claiming he was tired, she said. Then, she said, he told her he was touched by Father Geoghan.
“He said, ‘I yelled but you didn’t hear me,'” she said.
After refusing to return to the Boys and Girls Club to straighten out the situation under his mother’s advice, the plaintiff went home and stayed in his room for about an hour, his mother testified.
The plantiff’s mother testified that when her son came out of his room, he asked his mother why Geoghan touched him. She said she could not think of a reason.
The boy did not want anyone else to know, she said.
“I was embarrassed. I was nervous, scared,” he said yesterday.
According to the mother’s description of her son’s story, Goeghan reached under the plaintiff’s shorts and grabbed his buttocks as he was exiting the pool. She said she asked him if the defendant was only trying to help him out of the pool, but, “He said, ‘No Ma. He touched me naked.'”
Prosecutor Lynn Rooney opened the trial by highlighting the innocence of the plaintiff, who has since been an active volunteer for the Salvation Army and Students Against Drunk Driving as well as an employee of the Waltham Public Library.
Rooney also described the alleged assault and the plaintiff’s fearful reaction afterward.
Defense attorney Geoffrey Packard told the court Rooney was dramatizing the event, suggesting Geoghan was helping to boost the plaintiff out of the pool. Packard told the jury that the plaintiff, who grew up in a single-parent home in the projects and didn’t file a suit until 1999, was solely interested in gaining reimbursement.
“This case is not complex,” Packard said.
Before the trial began, Middlesex Superior Court Justice Sandra Hamlin heard testimony from Dr. Edward Messner, a psychiatrist at Massachusetts General Hospital who professionally treated Geoghan from Dec. 1994 until the end of July 1996.
“We [Geoghan and Messner] discussed his ability to control his sexual feelings, fantasies about women and boys,” Messner said. “He told me he experienced them but he was able to control them.”
Messner said he began to meet with Geoghan at the request of Father Thomas Flatley of the Archdiocese of Boston, who told Messner he was “concerned about father Geoghan’s safety and mental state.”
Packard called Messner’s testimony “vague,” “emotionally charged” and “irrelevant.”
Prior to Messner’s testimony, the defense requested any documents or testimony pertaining to Geoghan’s therapy not be held admissible in court. However, Justice Hamlin ruled in favor of the prosecution, saying the testimony was indicative of Geoghan’s state of mind.
The plaintiff is seeking $750,000 for emotional and mental distress in addition to other sums. If convicted, Geoghan, who is charged with indecent assault and battery, could face up to 10 years in prison.
Since 1995, 130 people have claimed that Geoghan has fondled or raped them and 84 civil lawsuits have been filed accusing Geoghan of sexual misconduct.
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