BOSTON -- Former priest James Porter, 70, whose widespread molestation of dozens of children foreshadowed the clergy sex abuse scandal that swept the Roman Catholic Church, died Feb. 11 at New England Medical Center in Boston. A cause of death was not immediately available. Mr. Porter's attorney had said he had incurable cancer.
Mr. Porter's case was the first high-profile one involving allegations that a priest had molested children in his parish -- and that the church had moved him from parish to parish to avoid scandal.
James Porter listens to testimony in a Massachusetts courtroom in 2004.
(Frieda Squires -- The AP)
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"Father Porter came to symbolize the start of an era when people could talk about priest abuse," said attorney Roderick MacLeish, who represented 101 victims of Mr. Porter in lawsuits in the early 1990s. "The irony is James Porter caused a lot of laws to be changed, caused a lot of people to come forward."
Mr. Porter pleaded guilty in 1993 to molesting 28 children, but he once told a television reporter he had molested as many as 100 children during his time as a priest in the 1960s and early 1970s in the Diocese of Fall River.
"This guy was a master at being around children," said former New Bedford City Council member and victim Thomas A. Kennedy, 52. "Thank God he's no longer in existence." Kennedy, a former altar boy, resigned his council seat in 2002 to deal with the trauma of being abused decades earlier.
Mr. Porter had finished his prison sentence last year. He was being held, however, pending a civil commitment hearing to determine if he should be committed as a sexually dangerous person. A hearing last month was postponed because Mr. Porter was too ill to appear.
Allegations of abuse began following Mr. Porter immediately after he became a priest in 1960 in the town of North Attleborough.
The seminary recommended him as "a manly, genuine young man" of "excellent character," according to the Boston Globe. But even though he was molesting children within weeks, sometimes brazenly, and rumors about him spread quickly through the town, he stayed there until 1963. He eventually was accused of having molested 68 boys and girls in North Attleborough.
In 1963, church authorities transferred the priest to a Fall River parish, where complaints about his behavior continued.
In 1965, he was transferred again, this time to New Bedford, where he allegedly molested more children. After he was ordered back to his parents' home, another priest who would later himself be accused of abuse -- the Rev. Paul Shanley -- sent him to New Mexico for treatment. As Mr. Porter moved between states, allegations of abuse followed him: in Texas, Minnesota and New Mexico.
Mr. Porter left the priesthood in 1974, married and became the father of four children. He was convicted of molesting his children's teenage baby sitter in 1987 and was released from a Minnesota jail after serving four months. He returned to face trial in Massachusetts, where he was convicted of molestation in 1993 and sentenced to 18 to 20 years.
During the hearing to have him classified as sexually dangerous -- and keep him behind bars indefinitely -- victims told wrenching stories of being raped or molested. His former wife told of walking in on him pressing himself against a neighborhood boy.
The sexual abuse scandal died down in the 1990s but erupted again in 2002, when the release of court files in the case of the Rev. John Geoghan opened the floodgates on files about dozens of sexually abusive priests in Boston. The scandal spread across the country.
