Becky Ianni - The Survivor

Becky Ianni, a spokesperson for SNAP in the D.C. region and a child sex abuse survivor, gave ABC7 News access to the recording she made of her Diocese of Arlington Review Board Hearing in 2007. This recording is equal parts revelatory and heartbreaking. The Diocese of Arlington eventually ruled that Ianni’s abuse allegations against Monsignor William Reinecke were credible.

Ianni is permitting us to air parts of her testimony to help survivors find the strength to come forward and for institutions, like the Catholic Church, to understand more completely the horrors unleashed by abusive members of the clergy on generations of children.

Becky Ianni is a spokesperson for SNAP, Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, in the Washington, D.C. region.

Ianni attended St. Mary Catholic Church in Alexandria, Virginia as a child.

She says Father William Reinecke, new to the parish in the mid-1960s, sexually abused her for years.

In 2007, Ianni appeared before the Diocese of Arlington Review Board to testify about her torment so Father Reinecke’s abuse would be deemed credible by church leaders.

She recorded her testimony.

“Well, I just wanted to start off by saying that it is really, really hard for me to be here," Ianni says in the recording.

“He was our friend," she says. "He was just always there and we always thought so much of him.”

Ianni continues: “I was maybe 9 years old. I didn’t know what he was doing. I didn’t kn...

Read the rest of the story here.