School retrenches after counselor accused of sexual misconduct

ST. LOUIS -- Assessing blame over how a defrocked priest was allowed to work as a grade-school counselor should be directed at church leaders who secretly settled sex-abuse lawsuits against him, and not at the St. Louis school system, the district's chief said Friday.

Superintendent Cleveland Hammonds Jr.'s comments came a day after James Beine was accused of exposing himself to two boys -- ages 9 and 10 -- at an elementary school where he worked as a counselor until last week.

In charging Beine with three sexual-misconduct counts, Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce said her office would investigate whether school officials may have been criminally negligent in allowing Beine -- "one of the most serious predators I have ever dealt with" -- to work closely with children.

When it comes to Joyce's scrutiny, Hammonds said, "I don't understand why there isn't equal attention paid to where his records were sealed and victims were paid" by the Roman Catholic church, never to be shared with the district.

"What I can't understand is why she's looking in our direction for criminal charges," he said.

Countered Joyce: "He's entitled to his opinion, and I'm not going to debate it with him. I'm going to get back to collecting evidence."

Internal investigation

In the meantime, Hammonds said he endorses school board president Harold Brewster's call for an internal investigation into what the district knew of Beine, who worked for the system 11 years before being suspended last week.

Beine, 60, was dismissed from the clergy in 1977 after abuse allegations were made, the archdiocese said. Since 1994, eight lawsuits have been filed accusing Beine of sexually molesting nine boys while working as a priest in the 1960s and 70s.

Beine used the name Dr. Mar James while with the district until officials apparently learned last week the church spent $110,000 to settle two of the suits accusing him of sexually abusing boys as a priest.

Messages left Friday with the Archdiocese of St. Louis were not immediately returned.

When the first of the lawsuits was filed in 1994, the district said it had removed Beine from any duties with children and put him to work in library services. But he eventually returned to his counseling job, though school officials say nothing in the district's files explains how that happened.