Texas Diocese facing multi-million lawsuit

Friday, 29th May 2009
By George Conger

The Diocese of Texas is a defendant in a lawsuit seeking £28 million in damages for allegedly covering up the molestation of school boys by an Episcopal priest. In extracts of a transcript from a 2008 pre-trial hearing printed in the Houston Press, the former chaplain of St. Stephen’s Episcopal School in Austin, Texas, the Rev James Tucker is accused of having molested students at the boarding school that caters to Texas’s upper classes.

After allegations of abuse were made against Mr Tucker, who served as chaplain to the boy’s school from 1958 to 1968, the Diocese of Texas transferred him to another school in the diocese, and then assigned him to St James’ Episcopal Church and School in Austin, which served the diocese’s black community. Mr Tucker retired in 1994 but was deposed by the diocese in 2008.

Robert Haslanger, who brought the class action lawsuit against the diocese, and who spoke to the Houston Press about the case said he first reported having been abused by Mr Tucker in 1966. In 1968 a second student, David Evert, complained of the abuse to the school’s headmaster, allegedly prompting the diocese to remove him from his post. In the lawsuit, Mr. Evert stated the headmaster forbade him from telling anyone, including his parents, about the abuse. the rest