The
Survivors Network of
those Abused by Priests
SNAP Press
Statements
Statement
Regarding Judge's Ruling on Parole Violation of St. Louis Sex Offender
For immediate release:
Friday, Mar. 26, 2004
Statement by SNAP leader SNAP leader David Clohessy,
National Director of SNAP, 314 566 9790 cell
Brother Robert Brouillette, A Convicted Sex Offender,
Goes Free Today
We are very distraught about today's decision to set free a cleric
who has molested youngsters.
It is devastating because again a dangerous man is set free instead
of being locked up.
It is tragic that a cowardly judge hid behind a legal technicality
to put boys at risk again. We hope that Will County voters will
keep Judge Daniel J. Rozak's reckless action in mind on election
day.
We pray that anyone who experienced, witnessed or suspected abuse
by Brouillette finds the courage to call the police and prosecutors.
And we pray that those who have been so severely hurt by this cleric
persist in their pursuit of justice and in their efforts at healing
and prevention. Our hearts ache for them.
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SNAP: Jail Christian brother
Former St. Laurence counselor accused of violating
probation in child porn case
Friday, March 26, 2004
By Ted Slowik - The Joliet Daily News
A group that represents people who were sexually abused by priests
wants a judge to jail a Joliet Christian brother who corresponded
with one of his alleged victims while on probation. Survivors Network
of those Abused by Priests claims Brother Robert Brouillette, 60,
wrote to one of his alleged victims in July 2000." In (the
letter), Brouillette begs the victim not to report him," said
David Clohessy of St. Louis, SNAP's executive director. "To
us, that shows he is unrepentant and unreformed."
Brouillette was a counselor at St. Laurence High School in Burbank.Will
County Judge Daniel J. Rozak is scheduled to decide this morning
if Brouillette, who was convicted of possessing child pornography
and soliciting a minor for sex, violated conditions of his sentence
and whether he should spend the next six months in jail. In a letter
to Rozak, SNAP urges the judge to put Brouillette behind bars.
Brouillette was sentenced to four years probation in March of 2000
for using the Internet to arrange a meeting with a police investigator
who posed as a 12-year-old boy. When authorities raided his room
in the religious order's residence at 958 Western Ave. in Joliet,
Brouillette led them to a cache of child pornography. At the time
of his arrest in 1998, Brouillette was working at St. Laurence High
School.
In a civil lawsuit filed in 2002 in Cook County and still pending,
a then-21-year-old man alleged that Brouillette sexually assaulted
him during his freshman and sophomore years at St. Laurence. The
suit alleges that officials with the college preparatory school
and the Archdiocese of Chicago knew Brouillette had a 30-year history
of sexual misconduct with minors when he was hired as a guidance
counselor in 1994. Since his sentencing in 2000, Brouillette has
spent his four years of probation in the St. Louis area at the St.
John Vianney Renewal Center, counseling center for clergy with sexual
problems.
During a news conference Wednesday outside a St. Louis parole office,
SNAP leaders said that in addition to corresponding with an alleged
victim while on probation, Brouillette attended an event at a Catholic
high school in Hawaii and is listed in that school's literature
as a "deputy provincial."
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