Ex-school counselor is charged with exposing himself

A public school counselor who was booted from the Catholic priesthood 25 years ago over accusations of sexual abuse was charged Thursday with exposing himself to students at a St. Louis elementary school.

St. Louis Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce said she expects to file more charges against the counselor, James A. Beine, also known as Mar James. Joyce said she considered Thursday’s charges “only the tip of the iceberg” and said almost half of the 50 calls about priests her office has received since last week concern complaints against Beine.

“He is, in my opinion, a very predatory, very dangerous individual,” she said during a news conference Thursday. “We have received credible information on this individual. Some of the complaints are from older people who say they were abused as kids. Some are current.”

Beine resigned March 21 from the St. Louis Public Schools. Two days earlier, school officials suspended him when told by the Post-Dispatch that the St. Louis Archdiocese paid $110,000 in the late 1990s to settle two lawsuits alleging sexual abuse three decades ago, when Beine was a priest at St. Peter’s Catholic Church in St. Charles.

The archdiocese removed him from the priesthood in 1977. On Wednesday, archdiocesan spokeswoman Terry Edelmann confirmed that Beine’s removal “was related to the allegations of sexual abuse.”

The new charges accuse Beine, 60, of sexual misconduct involving a child, a felony. He allegedly exposed himself on three occasions to two boys during the 2000-2001 school year at Patrick Henry Elementary School, just north of downtown.

Beine was arrested at 4 a.m. Thursday in a home he was renting in Highland. Officers couldn’t get Beine to answer the door and eventually had to obtain a search warrant to enter the residence, in the 800 block of Ninth Street.

Police said they found him hiding in a second-floor closet with a blanket over his head.

The case has created tension between Joyce and St. Louis Schools Superintendent Cleveland Hammonds. Joyce said Thursday that she was “very concerned and disappointed by how this was handled by the public schools.”

Hammonds, in response, said: “It’s interesting that the focus now seems to be moving on us.” He defended the district for not acting against Beine sooner.

In May 1999, Beine won the right in St. Charles County Circuit Court to change his name to Mar James for religious reasons. He called himself “Dr. Mar James” at Henry School, even though the district has no record that he holds a doctorate.

Joyce pleaded for people to come forward if they believe that Beine had committed any other instances of sexual misconduct. She said she sought Beine’s arrest when she did because she feared he was planning to flee the area.

She released a list of the 12 city schools where Beine had worked since 1991, as well as other public and Catholic schools here and elsewhere that employed him. She noted that Beine has an independent church group that claims to provide activities for young people, including weekend trips.

Originally called the Community of St. John Bosco – named after a saint known for helping young people – it now is called Sancte Joannes Bosco.

The $110,000 in payments came to light during a Post-Dispatch review of lawsuits that alleged abuse by priests. All told, eight lawsuits – more than against any other St. Louis priest – alleged that Beine sexually abused nine boys at St. Peter’s and at St. Francis de Sales Catholic Church in St. Louis during the late 1960s and 1970s.

When the first of them was filed in 1994, school officials said, they removed him from contact with children. But he eventually returned to his duties as a counselor, and school officials have said they don’t have any records explaining why. On Tuesday, the St. Louis School Board declined to order an internal investigation into the matter.

Hammonds said that School Board President Harold Brewster called Thursday night for a “full review of (Beine’s) tenure with the schools. He wants to see what record there is of his movement through the system and of any activity that may be inappropriate.”

He said Brewster would ask the board on Tuesday to give the task to its attorney, Ken Brostron, and to district security chief Charles McCrary.

Asked about previous statements that no records existed, Hammonds said, “We want to make sure because the media keeps thinking something is there, and to go through and make sure there is nothing I missed.”

Terri Brock, 28, and now of Cahokia, said her sons, 10 and 9, are the alleged victims in the charges against Beine. Brock said she complained to Patrick Henry principal Lloyd Washington, who held a meeting in May with her, Beine and other school officials. She said Beine, whom she knew as James, denied the accusation.

“Mr. Washington said an investigation would be conducted, but nothing happened,” Brock said. “I transferred my sons to another school.”

She moved to Cahokia and has enrolled her sons in another school system. Washington could not be reached.

Hammonds told reporters March 21 that he never had received any complaints about Beine. On Thursday, he released 10 pages of memos from principal Washington and teachers, written in spring last year, that in general outline a running dispute between James and another teacher. Hammonds said he never saw the memos until last week because Washington never proposed any action for the superintendent to take.

“If I had the knowledge that I had now, I would have seen this differently,” Hammonds said.

But one of the memos, dated April 30 and written by teacher Stephanie Davis, says in part: “I have observed Dr. James fondling young boys and urging them to tickle him on various parts of his body.”

Hammonds said a memo written later by Washington – summarizing a meeting he had with Brock, Davis, James and others – makes no mention of Davis’ accusation.

Ann Russek, a district official who met last year with Brock and Washington, said the principal used James to monitor the boys restroom – a typical school assignment. She said Brock reported that James had been urinating alongside the boys and that there were no allegations of inappropriate touching.

On May 2, Washington barred staff members from using student restrooms. No further action was taken.

Other parents said they had made similar complaints to Washington.

“My son was telling me he was coming in the bathroom with them,” said Angela Davis, who has a student at Henry. “He pretended like he was (going to the bathroom) and he was looking at their private parts.”

She added, “I didn’t think it was a big problem because he didn’t touch them.”

The archdiocese has sought for years to distance itself from Beine. In 1979, when Beine formed St. John Bosco, near Foristell, and claimed to offer Catholic sacraments and youth activities, the archdiocese took the rare step of warning Catholics that Beine could not function as a priest.

Archbishop Justin Rigali said of Beine in an interview Wednesday, “Many years ago he was totally suspended. He was fired. … He constituted himself an archbishop of his own church.”

Beine, or James, has continued to offer weddings, baptisms and other religious ceremonies and claims to serve the Orthodox Catholic Church in America – a denomination that archdiocesan officials say they have never heard of.

Until last week, Sancte Joannes Bosco had an Internet Web site that showed two church sites near Carlyle Lake in Illinois. But Clinton County Sheriff Paul Spaur said last week that the locations are a farmer’s equipment shed and a small motel near Carlyle.

During a dispute over the use of his Bosco Center with trustees of Incline Village near Foristell, Beine gave a deposition in November 1994. He said that he had spent nine months in 1976 “with the Paraclete fathers in Sunset Hills.”

The Paracletes is an order that works priests who have serious problems, including tendencies for sexual abuse and alcoholism. The archdiocese declined to comment on that matter.