By Catholics for Catholics
According to an email that went out to families, the Archdiocese of Chicago fired a man who had served as a substitute teacher and tutor in multiple area Catholic schools for a period of 16 months after previous allegations of child molestation came to light.
The man, Brett Smith, alarmingly passed fingerprint and background checks. He had previously legally changed his name, however, and also went by a number of nicknames.
It appears that Smith was charged under a different name in Indiana in 2005 for inappropriately touching a boy, and in 2005, he pled guilty to a misdemeanor battery charge involving multiple children and incidents. He pled guilty again to a separate charge involving another child in 2009.
The Superintendent and the Director of Office for the Protection of Children and Youth for the Archdiocese of Chicago wrote that they were “deeply concerned” but that there had been no allegations of misconduct within any of their schools. One family, however, filed a police report regarding his conduct while tutoring in their home.
The information that is available regarding Smith’s previous conduct indicates that his victims were mostly male.
While Smith is not a member of the clergy – and it is unknown if he even claimed to be Catholic – a recent analysis of the past 20 years shows that reports of clerical abuse of minors is down. Furthermore, 97% of the allegations were for incidents occurring before the year 2000. Males accounted for 80% of the victims.
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