By Daniel Massey
The new pastor at St. Elizabeth Church in Ozone Park led 100 parishioners in a prayer of healing Monday night, a week after allegations came to light that his predecessor stole funds from the parish school to lavish gifts on a 19-year-old male lover.
The charges against former St. Elizabeth priest John Thompson became public in a sexual harassment suit filed by the church school’s principal last week in State Supreme Court in Queens.
The civil suit filed by Barbara Samide, 39, of Forest Hills, alleged Monsignor James Spengler, the vicar for southern Queens, ignored her complaints that Thompson was verbally abusive, taunted her with sexually explicit material and stole thousands from St. Elizabeth school coffers to finance a sexual relationship with a 19-year-old male go-go dancer.
“We offer our prayers this evening to our parish for healing, for health, for peace and for reconciliation,” said the Rev. Steven Ferrari, St. Elizabeth’s new pastor, during the service Monday night.
He led parishioners in reciting Psalm 51, a prayer for forgiveness. “Be merciful to me, O God/because of your constant love./Because of your great mercy/wipe away my sins.”
A source said a grand jury impaneled by the Queens district attorney’s office is investigating the alleged misuse of parish funds, but a spokeswoman for DA Richard Brown said the DA would not comment on the case.
Frank DeRosa, a spokesman for the Diocese of Brooklyn, which oversees Queens churches, said the diocese is cooperating fully with the DA’s office.
Samide referred questions about the suit to her lawyer, Michael Dowd.
Her complaint seeking $5 million in damages mentioned Thompson, Spengler, Bishop Thomas Daily and the Brooklyn Diocese he runs as defendants.
The charges of squandered funds angered parents of the school, which is home to 320 kindergarten through eighth-grade pupils in a working-class neighborhood at 86th Street and Atlantic Avenue.
“We bring our kids to school, pay money, and then find out the priest was stealing the money,” said parishioner Juan Nunez, who noted he pays more than $4,000 a year for his two children to attend St. Elizabeth’s school. “It’s frustrating to the community.”
The complaint alleged that when Samide took over as principal in September 2000, Thompson immediately assumed control of the school’s finances. He took money from the school’s safe and told Samide he used a St. Elizabeth American Express card to pay for trips to a Florida nudist resort and weekly visits to a Greenwich Village massage parlor, it said.
She alleged in the complaint that Thompson also stole $14,000 from a school candy sale.
The suit said Thompson told the principal he was the go-go dancer’s “sugar daddy” and that the young man, whom he met at a Greenwich Village nightclub, was “going to be expensive.” The dancer, identified in the suit only as Jonathan, moved into the rectory in January 2001.
When Samide asked him if parents’ tuition payments were going to Jonathan, Thompson told her the young man “gives me what you want to do to me,” by performing oral sex. Later, instead of handing Samide an auditor’s report as she requested, Thompson gave her a pornographic magazine for gay men and said “here’s what you wanted,” the complaint said.
“He would often in his anger detail in painful images the various sex acts he had performed, make lewd comments about how he detested the female form and the only thing they were good for was oral sex,” Dowd said. “It’s a terrible experience for someone who is a very religious person.”
In the suit, Samide charged Spengler and other diocese officials with ignoring her complaints, threatening her job and trying to silence her. The principal was told over an 18-month period to “hang in there” and to “stick it out,” but no action was taken against Thompson.
She was warned she would be committing “career suicide” if she spoke to anyone about the harassment and was repeatedly threatened by Spengler and other diocese officials continuing through the middle of June, the suit said.
Thompson was finally forced to resign in March 2002 after Samide threatened to obtain legal counsel.
Spengler denied the allegations of inaction, saying through DeRosa that he only learned of Samide’s complaints on March 13, shortly before Thompson left St. Elizabeth’s.
“That’s just a lie. It’s a desperate lie perhaps, but regrettably it’s a lie that will be exposed during the course of the lawsuit,” Dowd said.
He said Samide is worried she will lose her job, but DeRosa insisted her position is not in jeopardy.
“She has a contract so her job is safe,” he said. “She’s the principal of the school.”
Dowd said Samide, a deeply religious woman, has been crushed by the ordeal and that Thompson’s behavior and the church’s inaction have made her sick. “She lost 20 pounds and can barely sleep at night,” he said.
For now, he said Samide is buoyed by the support shown by parents. Outside St. Elizabeth’s last Thursday, as they waited for their children to be dismissed from an awards assembly on the second to last day of classes, many said they admired the principal’s courage.
“I give that principal a lot of credit for what she did,” said one mother, who would not identify herself.
“She put herself out on a limb for the kids,” said another mother of a second-grader who also would not give her name. “That’s gutsy. I hope she doesn’t suffer too many repercussions because of it. When it comes to right and wrong, she did the right thing.”
Reach reporter Daniel Massey by e-mail at Timesledger@aol.com or call 229-0300, Ext. 156.
