‘Credibility’ at stake as landmark Delbarton clergy sex abuse trial goes to jury
MORRISTOWN — Seven years after the lawsuit was first filed, and five weeks after the trial began, the verdict in a landmark civil case accusing an ex-Delbarton School monk of sexually assaulting a 15-year-old student is now in the hands of a jury.
Judge Louis Sceusi charged the panel of four women and two men on Oct. 6 following summations by attorneys for the former student, identified during the trial as T.M., and a defense team representing the elite Morris County prep schoool, the Catholic order that operates it and the Rev. Richard Lott, the former teacher accused of the assault in 1976.
Plaintiff’s attorney Michael Geibelson urged the jury at the Morris County Courthouse to repudiate Delbarton’s “culture of abuse, a culture of silence that destroyed [T.M.’s] life.”
Defense attorneys asked the jurors to focus instead on alleged holes in the case. Mark Brancato, representing a now-89-year-old Lott, reviewed testimony indicating the New Year’s Eve party where T.M. says he was plied with alcohol never took place; no trial witnesses placed him on campus during the Christmas break when he says the assault occurred, Brancato said.
“There’s a lot of smoke, but no fire,” the attorney added.
T.M., now in his 60s, alleges that he was sexually assaulted by Lott while he was a sophomore staying on campus during winter break to work a maintenance detail led by the former chemistry teacher. He also said he wrote a letter shortly after graduating in 1977 to Abbot Brian Clarke, then the head of the Order of St. Benedict of New Jersey, detailing the assault. But instead of taking action to protect him, Clarke covered it up, T.M. alleges.
The sexual abuse, combined with his “betrayal” by Clarke and the school, led to a lifetime of emotional damage that has followed T.M. “like a dark cloud,” he testified earlier in the trial.
All the defendants deny wrongdoing. Their attorneys questioned the plaintiff’s motives and his trauma, noting one of his own witnesses, a psychiatrist, described him as a “well-adjusted” and “self-sufficient” adult. T.M., they said, expressed no claims of assault or lasting harm until speaking in 2013 with other alleged victims at Delbarton, where claims of abuse have been documented as far back as the early 1960s.
High stakes for hundreds of cases
The stakes are high on a number of levels. First, there is the justice, and compensation, sought by T.M.
The landmark trial is also significant as the first of hundreds of civil sexual abuse cases against the Catholic Church to reach a jury in New Jersey. It’s also the first trial among more than three dozen abuse suits against the prestigious school, where celebrities and other well-heeled parents send their sons to be educated for an annual $48,000 tuition.
A “substantial monetary award” would send a powerful message about institutional accountability and the willingness of the legal system to provide justice for survivors of clergy abuse,” said Mark Crawford, the New Jersey director for SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.
Crawford was instrumental in pushing a new law in New Jersey, signed by Gov. Phil Murphy in 2019, that extended the state’s statute of limitations and offered those who said they were victims of child sexual abuse the ability to sue alleged abusers until age 55, or within seven years of their realization that the violations caused them harm.
That law opened the door for countless former Delbarton students and people throughout the state to revisit their cases and consider litigation.
“Ultimately, the implications of a substantial award in this case would extend beyond the courtroom, hopefully reshaping long overdue reform of how religious institutions in New Jersey and beyond respond to historical abuse allegations, engage with survivors, and implement meaningful safeguarding reforms,” Crawford said.
Sceusi spent more than an hour instructing jury members, but advised them that they were to rely on “your recollection” of the testimony, “not mine.”
He also explained that in a civil trial, the “burden of proof” is on the plaintiff. The jurors’ job is to weigh if “a preponderance of evidence” indicates the allegations are true, he said. A 5-1 majority is all that is required to render a verdict.
“To a large degree, this is a case of credibility,” Sceusi told the jury.
Dueling summations
T.M.’s attorney pointed to his testimony noting that Clarke, the leader of the Benedictine order, told him Lott “admitted to everything” and promised he “would take care of it.” T.M. said Clarke also counseled him to keep the matter private to avoid embarrassment.
But Clarke, in a 2019 deposition read into the trial record, testified that Lott denied the abuse, tying his hands in terms of discipline.
Earlier in the trial, which began on Sept. 2, Lott also denied the abuse and said he was saying Mass at a Lakewood church the day of the alleged assault.
Clarke, who died in 2019, said in his deposition that he saved the letter written by T.M. recounting the abuse. But he eventually destroyed it, he testified, both to protect the accuser’s privacy and because he knew it “would be bad for the reputation of the school to have sex abuse associated with it.”
Defense attorney James Barletti, representing Delbarton and the OSBNJ, said T.M. was “seeking compensation,” not “right or wrong.” He also asked jurors to view his clients’ actions “through the lens of 1976.” It was a different time when the order “did not expect monks to be sexual beings.”
“People did not have to expect to deal with that kind of situation,” Barletti said. “If the OSBNJ could have done anything more, they would have.”
When cases of abuse were reported, the usual process for the church was to investigate. If the abuse was denied, they would “document it and move on,” he told jurors.
But Geibelson, the plaintiff’s attorney, said, “There’s a lot of things they could have done. They never discharged anyone.”
He scoffed at the suggestion that the times were different in 1976: “This should have been taken seriously in the ’60s and the ’70s, as they are today.”
Jury down to six
Monday’s morning session began with the absence of one man on the eight-member jury. Sceusi eventually said he got an email from the man indicating “he was OK,” but the judge said he had no choice but to discharge him. Sceusi was also required to draw lots to exclude one juror from the deliberations, but to remain sequestered in the court in case he is needed as a substitute.
The drawing left six jurors for the deliberations, two men and four women. Those deliberations were scheduled to begin on Oct. 7.
Since the trial started, the gallery has been packed with supporters of T.M., many of whom identify as victims of clergy sexual abuse, some at Delbarton. T.M. sat at his attorney’s table during the summation, but otherwise stayed in the gallery.
Lott sat silently behind his attorneys during the proceedings. The judge has forbidden Lott, T.M. and the attorneys to speak with the media about the trial.
William Westhoven
Morristown Daily Record
October 7, 2025