Introduction

Mom cried. Dad listened stone-faced in silence, hands clenched, knuckles white, until he exploded. “That son of a—! Now everything makes sense!”

From where we sat at the kitchen table, I could see into their living room, darkened by nightfall yet glowing from the lights on the tree. A spruce, probably sawed down by my dad a few weeks earlier in the woods outside Duluth. The colorful dots decorating the walls and ceiling were far easier for me to look at than my parents’ faces.

I’d spoiled their Christmas.

On the counter by the stove, the old coffee pot gurgled and steamed. The aroma of fresh-ground roasted beans lent an air of comfortable familiarity, as if life in our family would go on the same as before. But now nothing was the same.

I had just disclosed to my mom and dad the secret I kept buried in the shadow lands of shame for twenty-five years, the shame of what happened to me in boyhood by a minister they’d trusted. I hadn’t realized he was abusing me. I figured it must have been my fault. But the last mental health therapist I’d seen, in a long line of therapists, had finally laid out the eye-opening truth for me: A child is not responsible for an adult’s actions.

That evening in 1990 a few days before Christmas, its bright lights and dark revelations burned forever in my memory, began for me and my parents a seven-year quest. To protect other kids from a practiced pedophile. To hold accountable a church that turned a blind eye. We couldn’t have known how everything would get flipped on its head. How I, who’d spent my life hiding, would see my name splashed across the nation’s front pages. Or how I’d be regarded as the villain instead of the victim.

By the time my lawsuit against the church shambled to a long-overdue finale, people had forgotten why I’d come forward in the first place. Parishioners were almost as disgusted with me as I was with them. The media—from Minneapolis, Chicago, New York—seemed confused by the whole business. They didn’t know the real story.

Blindsided is the story behind the headlines. The story of a church bureaucracy and its unfettered team of lawyers, which together launched a counterattack to silence the truth. A story that puts a human face on Legal Abuse Syndrome, a psychological term increasingly used to explain why trauma survivors who become involved in prolonged legal proceedings cannot seem to find the hoped-for healing or closure. But at heart it’s a father and son story of love, grit, and dogged perseverance to change something in the social order that needed changing, even when it cost them everything.

Though Blindsided is based on my recollections, I also used medical and counseling records, court files, newspaper articles, personal letters, and a secret diary to help reconstruct what actually happened. Quotes are taken from legal transcripts exactly as written, including the ellipses inserted by court reporters to indicate pauses in the witnesses’ testimony, not omitted words. Conversations have been reconstructed as accurately as possible regarding content and intent.

Decades have passed since the events in this book happened. The combination of Post-Traumatic Stress Syndrome from the sexual abuse and Legal Abuse Syndrome from the cumulative assaults of the justice system left my own belief system in shambles. The extended legal warfare silenced my voice for a longer period of time than the initial molestation did. Yet today my story is more relevant than ever, given the tsunami of victims who take the brave step of holding their perpetrators accountable in court. Dealing with courts, attorneys, and frivolous filings of motions and appeals can drown them in waves of despair and a sense of helplessness. And no one seems to understand their silent suffering.

But I do.

I dedicate this memoir to my devoted parents, Joe and June Samarzia, and to others—family, friends, and strangers—who walked the twisting path with me. And, because so many men and women still hide in their own shadow lands, my book is especially for those whose young souls were mangled by an adult’s predatory actions: I encourage them to gather the power they need to break free from the stranglehold of shame, and the knowledge to protect themselves when they do.

Long into adulthood I hid behind sunglasses, behind walls. I carefully arranged every moment of every day to have as little contact with other people as possible. Now I’ve written my life for anyone to read, and I’m not hiding anymore.