A Honolulu man is suing Damien Memorial School, the Roman Catholic Church in Hawaii and a convicted child molester who he says sexually abused him while a Roman Catholic brother at the school in the early 1980s.
Attorney Michael Green filed the lawsuit Thursday in Circuit Court on behalf of Edward J. Saunders, who attended the 10th grade at Damien from 1982 to 1983.
According to the lawsuit, George Silva, 81, taught a religion class and used his position of authority to become a mentor and confidant to Saunders, who felt isolated from his family at the time.
Trusting Silva, Saunders asked whether he could change into his gym clothes in Silva’s classroom instead of the school’s locker room to avoid another student the boy perceived as a bully.
Silva allowed him to do so but used the opportunity to start sexual conversations that eventually led to him having sex with the boy and committing sexual violence on him regularly for six months, the suit alleges.
When Saunders reported the abuse to another brother at the school, the brother became jealous and asked Saunders why he was performing sexual acts for Silva if he were unwilling to do them for him, the lawsuit says.
School officials should have known about Silva’s abuse of children, and their silence about sexual predators at the school allowed other children to be molested, including a sexual assault that Silva pleaded guilty to in June 2006, the suit says.
In that case, Silva took a boy from New Mexico to Europe and performed oral sex on him. The boy was between 12 and 16 at the time. Silva, who was a priest in New Mexico when he was arrested, was sentenced to five years in prison.
The suit seeks general, special and punitive damages.
Silva resides at a religious congregation in Albuquerque, N.M., according to the National Sex Offender Public Website.
