Sex assault suit names elderly Jesuit
A retired Jesuit priest now living in Spokane has been accused of sexually assaulting two women in remote Alaskan villages more than 20 years ago and fathering their children.
Both of the children, now grown men, and one of the women are suing James E. Jacobson for deprivation of child support, emotional distress, loss of self-esteem and other damages. The plaintiffs – identified only as John A. Doe, John B. Doe and Jane B. Doe in a complaint filed this week in Alaska’s Superior Court – are also suing the Diocese of Fairbanks and Jacobson’s religious order, the Oregon Province of the Society of Jesus. The suit seeks more than $50,000 for each of the three alleged victims, with the exact amount to be proved at trial.
Jacobson, who is in his early 80s, now lives in the Regis Community, a home for retired Jesuits on Gonzaga University’s campus. He did not return phone calls for comment Friday.
“These Native children of the Church were abandoned and left to be raised and cared for by their impoverished Native families in rural Alaska,” wrote Christopher R. Cooke, the Anchorage attorney representing the alleged victims.
Cooke, whose firm has filed a number of lawsuits on behalf of clergy sexual abuse victims, noted in a statement that DNA tests administered earlier this year prove that Jacobson is the biological father of both “John Doe” plaintiffs.
The Rev. John Whitney, the provincial and leader of the roughly 250 Jesuits in the Pacific Northwest, said it was only recently through these tests that he had learned of Jacobson’s children. “But I’ve never heard of the sexual assaults,” he said during a phone interview. Whitney, who was in Maryland Friday, had yet to see a copy of the lawsuit and declined comment.
The complaint, however, alleges that church officials knew of Jacobson’s behavior and covered it up. They also didn’t provide financial support despite knowledge of the priest’s paternity, it stated.
The accused priest spent 13 years – from 1963 to 1976 – working in Yupik Eskimo villages in Alaska.
Jacobson allegedly assaulted the mother of John A. Doe in December 1965 but was removed from the village by the church after she got pregnant. The woman, who is now dead, gave birth to a boy in August 1966. Her son grew up believing that his mother’s husband was his biological father. It wasn’t until after the DNA results came back in May of this year that he discovered that Jacobson was really his father, according to the suit.
Jane B. Doe, an Alaska native who grew up in a remote Eskimo settlement and received little formal schooling, was allegedly another Jacobson victim. In the winter of 1974-75, she claims that the priest sexually assaulted her in the church rectory. She not only suffered physical and emotional trauma, the claim stated, he also impregnated her. Jane B. Doe gave birth to John B. Doe in February of 1975. A DNA test taken in August also shows Jacobson is his biological father, according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit asserts that prior to 1973 church officials knew that Jacobson had engaged in sexual relations with other Alaska Native women and had fathered other children.
Before moving to the Regis Community, Jacobson was chaplain at the Oregon State Penitentiary in Salem. According to a January 2004 article in the Catholic Sentinel, Jacobson’s assignment at the penitentiary was supposed to last for only a few months, but he ended up staying for 25 years.
Jacobson’s duties there included three Masses on Sundays at different facilities, running a Bible study program and coordinating the prison chapel, according to the article. He was praised as a “spiritual master” especially beloved by inmates on death row. Last year, the priest received the Salvation Army’s national award for Chaplain of the Year and the American Catholic Correctional Chaplain Association’s Maximilian Kolbe Award.