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ONGOING COVERAGE: MORNING STAR INVESTIGATION

Four more men allege abuse at boys' ranch

Two men name Weitensteiner as perpetrator at Morning Star

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Benjamin Shors
Staff writer
June 5, 2007

Four more men sued Morning Star Boys' Ranch on Monday, including two men who allege that the ranch's revered director sexually abused them in the 1970s and '80s.

Two of the plaintiffs – 50-year-old Raymond Nelson and 38-year-old Robert Gariepy – allege that the Rev. Joseph Weitensteiner sexually abused them at the Catholic boys' home south of Spokane. In previous legal filings, four other men have accused Weitensteiner of sexual abuse, according to Spokane County Superior Court documents.

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Reached late Monday, a Morning Star spokeswoman said Weitensteiner was not available for comment.

"Neither Morning Star nor our legal counsel have reviewed these new claims, so we can't comment on them," said Jenn Kantz.

In previous statements, Weitensteiner has strenuously denied previous allegations of sexual abuse. Morning Star said the priest passed a polygraph test.

"His denials have to be viewed with increasing skepticism given the mounting number of men who have come forward and explicitly described the sex abuse they suffered at his hands," said Timothy Kosnoff, a Seattle attorney representing the plaintiffs.

Weitensteiner, a 74-year-old Catholic priest, retired from Morning Star in 2006 amid allegations of sexual and physical abuse. The well-known boys' home opened in 1956 and has served 1,300 boys – many of whom had been involved in Washington state's juvenile justice and child welfare system.

Gariepy has a lengthy criminal history, including convictions for burglary, drug offenses and vehicle prowling, according to newspaper archives. Nelson also has a criminal record, Kosnoff acknowledged.

"You have accounts that are so detailed and cross-corroborating," Kosnoff said. "The grooming patterns, the information they know … it just could not have been made up."

Thirteen former residents have sued Morning Star in three separate lawsuits, and the cases have been slowly winding through the civil courts. Last month, in a critical decision, a Spokane Superior Court judge ordered the ranch to release more than 1,000 personal files of former residents to the plaintiffs' attorneys.

The allegations came as a shock to supporters of Weitensteiner, a decorated Boy Scouts leader, who began working at Morning Star as a counselor in 1957. He later left to join the priesthood and returned to become Morning Star's director in 1966.

In 2005, after the first allegations surfaced in court documents, Weitensteiner said he had "never been sexually inappropriate with any child at any time."

Earlier that year, The Spokesman-Review reported that Morning Star had repeatedly allowed the physical and sexual abuse of boys in its care, citing records from the Department of Social and Health Services, court documents and interviews with former counselors and residents.

In Monday's filing, part of an ongoing lawsuit against Morning Star, two other men – Curtis Stump, 42, and Glenn Anderson, 41 – alleged they were abused at the boys' home. Both men allege that former Morning Star counselor James Clarke sexually abused them.

Clarke has previously been accused of molesting another resident who sued the ranch in 2005.