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Lambs to Slaughter

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In 1979, there came another abuse report: a boy who said Doherty drugged and molested a 16-year-old friend. At a deposition last year, Herman, the victims' attorney, handed Monsignor Rev. Tomas M. Marin, the chancellor of the archdiocese, a copy of the April 1979 memo that contained the accusation. He asked Marin what the proper response to that report should have been. Marin answered, "Investigate the allegations and see if they were true or not."

Herman pounced, reminding Marin that the report ought to have been given to the police, not investigated internally by the church. Marin disagreed, saying "there [was] no policy in 1979 that we had to report it."

But there was a law: Florida Statute 415.504, which requires persons with knowledge or suspicions of child abuse to report them to the Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services. "What if I told you there was a law that said you had to report it," Herman said. "Would that change your opinion?"

"It would possibly change my opinion," Marin said.

The report of the 16-year-old, plus another allegation that Doherty molested a six-year-old, prompted an investigation by the archdiocese. Ultimately Marin's own review of archdiocese records found no interviews of victims or Doherty — only a consultation with a psychiatrist and a background check to ascertain whether Doherty had ever been arrested in Broward County (he had not). The investigation was closed.

If you've been abused by a priest in South Florida, Jeffrey Herman is the guy you call. Herman grew up in a Jewish family in the eastern suburbs of Cleveland. In his forties, he has a weightlifter's shoulders and an eager, energetic demeanor. On days he's not in court, he ditches the suit for jeans and vintage T-shirts.

So far, Herman has settled five cases involving Rev. Neil Doherty and has six more that are pending. He has also sued the archdiocese based on reports of abuse by 15 other priests.

The Catholic Church has become a jackpot for Herman, who reasons it's the church's own fault. "From my perspective, secrecy is a hallmark of the church," he says. "You have this imbalance of power where priests are the parish's connection to God. They have a mandate to keep secrets, to protect the church from scandal. And that was their priority — not protecting children."

In recent years, Herman has learned how sexual abuse causes victims to feel shame and to feel as if they are controlled by forces stronger than themselves. Since the criminal courts' statute of limitations has lapsed for alleged victims of abuse in the Seventies and Eighties, the civil courts are the only venue to seek justice. "By coming forward and filing a civil lawsuit, they're taking power back in their lives," says Herman. "Victims have told me this is part of the healing process. By holding the church accountable, they realize, 'This is not my fault.'"

A central issue in the Doherty cases and in those of other priests is the standard by which the Catholic Church has traditionally judged priests' guilt, called "moral certainty." It's similar to a criminal jury's instruction to convict only when evidence suggests guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Handled internally by the church, abuse complaints boil down to a priest's word against a child's. In Doherty's case, those children were almost always from checkered backgrounds. That appears to have made it difficult for the church to establish Doherty's guilt.

Herman argues that even if the individual boys who claimed Doherty abused them lacked credibility, the sheer volume of reports, combined with their similarity — drugged and then raped — established a pattern. "If you're not going to remove a priest until you have moral certainty, you're going to expose kids to a grave risk," says Herman. "In my opinion, the only thing certain about Doherty is that he was going to abuse more kids."

As he shuffles into a conference room in a jail jumpsuit, Jorge Soler no longer looks like the boy he was when he met Father Doherty. He doesn't even seem like the young man who was booked at the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center, off Doral Boulevard in Miami. When he posed for his mug shot, he had a finely trimmed goatee. Now, age 32, his beard is thick and covers nearly his whole face.

Soler grew up in Little Haiti during the early Eighties, when drugs and crime made the sidewalks a menacing place. He was the youngest of five children in a poor family. Soler tried drugs even before he met Doherty, in 1983 at age nine. The priest had been sent to his home as an outreach counselor. Soon the boy was placed in Miami Bridge, a youth shelter then on NW South River Drive.

The abuse began immediately.

Doherty would pick him up and take him shopping for new shoes, shorts, and jeans before they were joined by two other boys, both named Victor, says Soler. One was of Colombian descent, the other Puerto Rican. Doherty served them drinks that Soler thinks were drugged, possibly with valium or Quaaludes. "He turned me onto drugs by not telling me he was giving me drugs," Soler says with a bitter smile.

Then Doherty assaulted the trio, he says. On some occasions, another priest — who was a junior pastor at St. Mary's Cathedral, possibly a seminarian — was also present. That priest, says Soler, took nude photographs of the boys and joined Doherty in raping them.

He remembers riding in Doherty's car, the priest drunk or high on valium, scanning Biscayne Boulevard for a boy who would turn a trick. Doherty, says Soler, had no interest in men. "If they were over 18, he didn't want to mess with them."

Sometimes, when he visited Doherty, Soler says, he'd be given $200. Other times, "it was hard to get a dollar out of him," even when Soler was willing to trade sexual favors.

The abuse first came to light in 1983, during a counseling session with Dr. Simon Miranda, a court-appointed therapist. Soler began weeping and finally described how Doherty abused him. Archdiocese documents show Miranda immediately reported Soler's allegation to Archbishop Edward McCarthy, but no investigation followed.

Four years later, Soler sought out Doherty at the archdiocese pastoral center. "I wanted money for drugs," says Soler. "He had said if I ever needed money to call him, but he was ignoring me."

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