A former Big Island farmer is being accused in a civil lawsuit of sexually abusing his adoptive son in the 1980s.

A complaint filed in a Honolulu court says the man, whose last known address was in Saipan, abused the boy over a five-year period. The complaint says the man adopted the boy in California in 1983 and moved to Hawaii several years later. It says he used physical and psychological abuse to prevent the boy from reporting the abuse.

The Honolulu law firm of Jeff Anderson & Associates says another one of the farmer’s adoptive children reported in 1992 of being abused, but those charges were dropped in 1994.

The lawsuit in the latest allegations was filed last week in Circuit Court.