Bittersweet Justice-New York

Occasionally there is justice for those negatively affected by the child welfare and adoption systems. Unfortunately, it is usually bittersweet and much too late. This will serve as REFORM Talk’s justice files.

Warren County and the United Methodist Church have agreed to pay $875,000 to settle a sexual abuse lawsuit filed on behalf of a man who was sexually abused as a child nearly 50 years ago by a former minister who had also been the boy’s foster parent.

 

The former pastor, 82-year-old Richard A. Reynolds, is a Guilderland resident who previously operated a professional clown business for more than two decades, including at area children’s events, after his retirement from the Methodist church 25 years ago, according to his online profile and attorneys in the case.

 

In at least two lawsuits filed under New York’s Child Victims Act, Reynolds has been accused of molesting numerous boys in the 1970s and 1980s, when he was assigned to North Creek Methodist Church in Warren County and also the First United Methodist Church in Gloversville. 

 

New York’s Child Victims Act temporarily lifted the statute of limitations to allow alleged victims of sexual abuse to file once time-barred claims against their abusers or the institutions that harbored them. 

In one of the cases that recently settled, Reynolds had allegedly sexually abused the victim, who was 11 when it began, while working as a foster parent for the Warren County Department of Social Services.

 

Under the settlement, Warren County paid $750,000 and the church paid $125,000. 
Officials with Warren County declined to comment. The United Methodist Church did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

 

Vincent T. Nappo, an attorney for the plaintiff in the case, said the county had “failed to supervise and protect our client for years on end, leaving our client vulnerable to unthinkable acts of sexual abuse by the very adult charged with his protection. No child should ever have to endure such trauma and abuse.”

 

“The church sent Reynolds for sexual deviancy treatment, and then allowed Reynolds back into its congregation to continue serving in leadership positions where he would have access to children,” Nappo continued. “The church never reported Reynolds to law enforcement, and in fact, pleaded with the victim’s family to keep the abuse silent out of fear of bad publicity.” 

 

In an interview Monday, Reynolds was asked several times by a reporter if he denies the sexual abuse allegations or wanted to comment on them.

 

“No, that was a long, long, long, long time ago,” he said, adding that he closed down his clown business when the coronavirus pandemic struck.”

 

Former pastor accused of sex abuse later ran kids’ clown shows

 

[Times Union 6/18/24 b y Brandon J Ryans]