ALBANY — An Albany County man is suing the county and the Albany Catholic diocese for, he says, allowing him to be sexually abused by a priest in Altamont in the mid-eighties, not prosecuting the priest, and harassment by the probation department.

In his lawsuit, filed last week by his attorney, John Aretakis, the man asks for $2 million from the county and $1 million from the diocese. He names seven defendants: former District Attorney Paul Clyne, probation officer Linda Stippe, the Albany County Department of Probation, Albany County, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany, and Bishop Howard J. Hubbard.

The man blames the agencies and people named in the lawsuit for his life-long hatred of authority.
"I spent 15 years of my life with this on my shoulders....I hated anybody with authority," he said. "I had a real bad attitude about life because of it."

He spoke to The Enterprise on the condition of anonymity.

In 1985, at the age of 15, the man says, he was ordered by the Albany County Court to live at the Father Gerald Miller Home for Wayward Boys in Altamont. He was on probation for stealing.
"I was a stupid teenage kid; I stole a dirtbike from a neighbor," he said.
At the home, the lawsuit says, the boy was "repeatedly sexually abused and sodomized by Fr. Gerald Miller." He was a victim of "rape, sodomy, and repeated acts of vile and illegal sexual abuse," the lawsuit says.

The man, who is now in his thirties, said he can’t bear to speak of the acts, they are still so upsetting to him. Two other boys that he knew of were being abused in similar ways by Miller at the time, he said.

Miller was a member of the Missionaries of Our Lady of La Salette, a Hartford, Conn., based order of priests and monks. The order could not provide The Enterprise with information on Miller, who is no longer a member. Aretakis said Miller fled New York to avoid prosecution. His current whereabouts are unknown.

Aretakis has been zealous in his pursuit of a wide range of cases alleging abuse by priests. He has been accused of harassing parishioners at the Holy Cross Church in Albany.

His client was part of an $85 million settlement from the Boston Archdiocese, Aretakis said. He received $300,000.

The man said, and the suit alleges, as a teen, he reported the abuse to his probation officer, Joseph Fahey, who, the man said, told him that if he left the home, he would be sent to jail.
So, the man said, "I just dealt with it. I was a 16-year-old kid. I didn’t know any better."
After months of abuse, the man recalled, "I went to visit a family friend, a wealthy guy in the area. I told him what was happening. He told Probation he would not send me back there. He told them they could press kidnapping charges, but he wouldn’t send me back to that."
The friend, Gary Bovina, intervened and took the young man out of the home, the lawsuit says. Once Bovina became involved, Fahey acted "like he was the hero," the man said; he did not send the boy back to Miller.
Soon after, the man said, the home, which had moved from Altamont to the grounds of the La Salette seminary on the outskirts of the village, was closed. Two other boys received settlements for accusations of abuse, the man said. He called it "hush money."

For years, the man said, he kept the abuse to himself.

The man is married now with two children and a job as a trucker, but he says it took him years to develop a normal life.
"I was a real stupid kid," he said. "I thought that I deserved it all."

Finally, in 2004, Aretakis sent a video of his client to then-Albany County District Attorney Clyne. In the video, the man described Miller’s abuse.

Clyne did not investigate, the lawsuit says. Aretakis claims this was part of a pattern of Clyne’s, ignoring abuse victims.
"He basically says, ‘Here’s Bishop Hubbard’s number. Call him,’" Aretakis said.

At the time, the man said, he was serving probation for a misdemeanor, illegal use of a computer.

After he submitted his complaint to Clyne, he says he was the victim of harassment from the county. According to the lawsuit, the department of probation and the man’s probation officer, Stippe:

—Called him a pedophile and a pervert;

—Strip-searched him, touching his genitals;

—Didn’t allow him to visit his sick and dying grandfather;

—Repeatedly threatened and intimidated him;

—Made him see Stippe once a week instead of once a month;

—Informed his neighbors of his criminal history;

—Required him to enroll in an anger management class shortly before his probation was up; and

—Lied and tried to hurt him in a custody case.

Also, the lawsuit says, the county and the city of Albany started to regularly ticket the trailer he drove for work.
"Nothing ever happened to me before I went to Paul Clyne and, all of a sudden, everyone in the county started harassing me," the man said.

No one ever told him the harassment was because of his abuse complaint, the man said. The treatment ended when his probation did, he said.

Patricia Aikens, director of the Albany County Department of Probation, referred questions to Albany County Attorney Kristina Burns.

Burns, speaking on behalf of the probation department and the county, said she couldn’t comment on pending litigation. She also would not comment on the Father Gerald Miller Home for Wayward Boys.

Fahey, now an employee of the state Department of Parole, was not available for comment.

Clyne did not return phone calls. He currently works for the New York Prosecutors Training Institute.
In the 2004 election for district attorney, Clyne lost to David Soares. Aretakis said the lawsuit doesn’t name the district attorney’s office because Soares, "does the right thing" with priest-abuse cases.
"This is a Paul Clyne mess," Aretakis said.
"Paul Clyne or his agents were acting in a manner to continue to aid, assist and facilitate the defendant Albany Diocese pedophile priests," the lawsuit says.

Aretakis’s client told The Enterprise this week, "I’m hoping Albany County will be held liable for its role. They’re just as guilty as the priest is."

The question of ordered priests

Even though Miller was a member of a religious order, Aretakis claims the Albany Diocese is partially responsible for his client’s abuse because the diocese oversees all priests within its boundaries, including ordered priests.
"When you go to a host diocese, that diocese and that bishop is in charge of you and supervises you," Aretakis said.

Among other things, Aretakis cites the fact that the diocese includes ordered priests among its internal statistics of abuse. He also cites Catholic Canon Law—incorrectly, said Kenneth Goldfarb, spokesperson for the diocese.

An ordered priest must only ask a bishop’s permission if he is going to perform a religious service in the diocese, a wedding, for example, Goldfarb said.
"This Home for Wayward Boys does not fall under that category," Goldfarb said.
Though Aretakis claims Miller did, on occasion, perform mass at St. Lucy’s in Altamont and St. Bernadette’s in Berne, "The lawsuit does not involve his work in a parish church," Goldfarb said.
"Father Miller is not and has never been a part of the Albany Diocese," Goldfarb said. The diocese first heard of the complaints against Miller when the lawsuit was filed, he said.