Image of Covenant House Is Eroded by Sex Charges - New York Times 11/14/11 8:12 AM
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Image of Covenant House Is Eroded by Sex Charges - New York Times 11/14/11 8:12 AM HOME PAGE TODAY'S PAPER VIDEO MOST POPULAR TIMES TOPICS MOST RECENT Login Register Now Help Search All NYTimes.com Archives COLLECTIONS > SEXUAL MISCONDUCT ADS BY GOOGLE Image of Covenant House Is Eroded by Sex Charges Robyn Blythe The following article is based on reporting by Ralph Blumenthal, Suzanne Daley and M. A. Farber and was written by Mr. Blumenthal EMDR Therapy Published: February 06, 1990 Overcome Two months after Covenant House was rocked by allegations of sexual misconduct leveled SIGN IN TO E- depression, worry & against its founder and guiding spirit, the Rev. Bruce Ritter, the nation's largest shelter program MAIL fear! Serving for runaway youngsters is struggling to stem an erosion of support amid widening inquiries by PRINT Calabasas & Santa state and church authorities. Monica. therapists.psychologytoday.com The allegations, by a former Covenant House resident who accused the 62-year-old priest of providing gifts in return for sexual favors, touched off an investigation, now being conducted by English the Manhattan District Attorney, into whether Father Ritter spent Covenant House funds for his Pronunciation personal benefit and the obtaining of false documents for the former resident, including a Your Accent will fabricated baptismal certificate. DISAPPEAR with our DVD and Live And now a new inquiry, previously undisclosed, is under way. Church officials are investigating Classes.Try for allegations by a second man that, when he was in his mid-teens, he was drawn into a sexual $9.95! relationship by Father Ritter. www.PronunciationWorkshop.co m/Demo Charges Called 'Garbage' Teach English in The charges by this man, Darryl J. Bassile of Ithaca, N.Y., are under review this week by a panel Japan convened by the Franciscan order, to which Father Ritter belongs. A member of the panel who is ALT (Assistant a specialist in treating troubled priests interviewed Mr. Bassile at his home last week. Language Teacher) Jobs in Japanese ADS BY GOOGLE Public Schools interacnetwork.com More Like This Serious Sex Crime Defense No Charges Against Ritter On Get a team of attorneys & experts. Finances Countless sex crime cases won. Covenant Report Is Said to Find LibertyBellLaw.com Sex Misconduct How Covenant House Gave Drifter a False ID Find More Stories Sexual Misconduct Covenant House Father Ritter has characterized as ''garbage'' the allegations by Mr. Bassile, by his original accuser, Kevin Lee Kite, and by a third man, John P. Melican. While acknowledging that he knew all three and had gone out of his way to befriend two of them, Father Ritter said he had ''never, never'' had sexual relations with any youth in Covenant House. ''The greatest pain of all,'' he said, was the risk that public faith in him ''had been shattered.'' He said he had no intention of stepping aside. All three of Father Ritter's accusers were once in the Covenant House program. Two say they were sexually involved with Father Ritter as minors, years ago. But the District Attorney's investigation does not concern possible sexual misconduct in those cases, because the statute of limitations has expired. Mr. Kite's allegations concern events just last year, when he was an adult. http://www.nytimes.com/1990/02/06/nyregion/image-of-covenant-house-is-eroded-by-sex-charges.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm Page 1 of 7 Image of Covenant House Is Eroded by Sex Charges - New York Times 11/14/11 8:12 AM The Franciscan panel is not bound by the statute of limitations in considering sexual misconduct allegations. After the initial allegations by Mr. Kite became public, John Cardinal O'Connor, the Archbishop of New York, said he had spoken with Father Ritter and afterward expressed his full confi-dence in the priest. Yesterday the Cardinal's secretary, Msgr. James McCarthy, said nothing had altered the Cardinal's views. But the storm engulfing Father Ritter and threatening the financial lifeblood of an international charity that budgets three times more on runaways than the entire Federal Government seems unlikely to dissipate soon. An 'Unsung Hero' Trying to Save Young Runaways What began late last year as a narrowly focused charge by Mr. Kite, a drifter and former prostitute whose own father described him as a chronic liar, has since broadened into a story of questionable expenditures, faked documents and missing records - all at an institution whose near-legendary founder won the hearts of Presidents, industrialists and ordinary contributors alike. Father Ritter was cited as an ''unsung hero'' by President Reagan in his 1984 State of the Union address and President Bush visited him at Covenant House in Manhattan last fall. He has campaigned vigorously against the sexual exploitation of children. In 1985 and 1986 he served as a member of Attorney General Edwin Meese's National Commission on Pornography. In the last four years, Covenant House has been, by all accounts, a wildly successful agency, tripling its budget, outbidding the New York City government for a West Side building and opening more than a dozen new centers. Covenant House dominates the field of institutions helping teen-age runaways with its large shelters, and its small, highly specialized and praised programs: a unit for youths infected with the AIDS virus, one for drug addicts and a project, called Rights of Passage, which offers long- term housing and education for highly motivated youths. Last year it had a budget of $87 million, almost all raised from private donations. The Federal Government spent about $29 million on similar programs, according to the National Network of Runaway and Youth Services. Short Stays Some who work in the field call Covenant House shelters the McDonald's of youth services because they are often large, with beds for more than 100, and some 70 percent of youngsters who go there return to the streets. Most stays average six days. Others, like Joyce Hunter, the director of Social Services for the Hetrick-Martin Institute, an organization that does outreach work with gay and lesbian youths in New York, said gay youths - many of whom are in the streets because their families have thrown them out - have at times been harassed by Covenant House counselors and other youths. But even the agency's harshest critics said they would not welcome its demise. ''We definitely have criticisms,'' Ms. Hunter said. ''But we don't want to see it fold. We need that place and there are a lot of good people working there.'' Even Father Ritter's accusers laud the pioneering work Covenant House has done to help more than 200,000 runaways since it was started in two abandoned tenements in the East Village of Manhattan in 1968. Many child welfare experts say it is virtually ''the only game in town'' for older teen-agers. Doors Are Always Open The success of Covenant House's fund raising is often attributed to Father Ritter's skill with troubled youths and his talent at letter writing. His newsletters, the bulk of the agency's fund- raising efforts, are usually tales of one youth or another. They go out once a month to about http://www.nytimes.com/1990/02/06/nyregion/image-of-covenant-house-is-eroded-by-sex-charges.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm Page 2 of 7 Image of Covenant House Is Eroded by Sex Charges - New York Times 11/14/11 8:12 AM 800,000 people. Covenant House workers still go nightly to the Hudson River piers with sandwiches and hot chocolate for the teen-agers who mingle in the shadows selling themselves to survive. The doors of the Covenant House shelter on 41st Street near Times Square are still open 24 hours a day for those with bloodshot eyes and grimy clothes who stumble in desperate for a safe place to sleep and, sometimes, a way to rebuild their lives. At the outreach center on West 44th Street the other day, one young man who had been in and out of Covenant House for a year and a half said he had become so addicted to crack that he had stolen from his parents and had finally sold his clothes to get high. ''This guy,'' the youth said, referring to Father Ritter, whom he had never met, ''takes kids who are dying. If it wasn't for Covenant House a lot of people would be dead on 42d Street.'' On a recent day, in a Covenant House lounge that was crowded with youngsters who had come for food, clean clothes or counseling, many said they had a hard time believing the accusations against Father Ritter. But the furor has taken a toll on the organization. Television news crews have repeatedly shown up at Covenant House buildings. Donations have dropped off. Within days of Mr. Kite's accusations, Covenant House found in an overnight telephone survey that as many as half its contributors were unsure whether they would continue their support. In December, the month when the agency usually receives up to 20 percent of its donations, Covenant House fell $3 million short of the $15 million it had expected to raise that month. Facing the prospect of a continuing decline in contributions, the agency halted plans to develop programs for Phoenix, St. Louis, Kansas City and Chicago and expand programs in New York, New Jersey and Washington. It has also delayed surveys to determine needs in five other nations. ''We're in the middle of a whirlwind,'' said Mark Stroock, a retired senior vice president of Young & Rubicam who has been on the Covenant House board of directors for 12 years.