60 - Live Interview with Richard Windmann

[00:00:00] Now it's time for four questions, that part of the podcast, when we get to know our guest a bit better by asking a few questions. Let's go! And welcome to the Healing for Male Survivors podcast. I am your host, Mike Chapman, and with me today is Dr. Richard Windmann, and I will share with you his intro in a moment.

[00:00:22] And we also have a live audience here with us. If you would like to join us on future episodes, you can do so. Find out more on my website, which is polarlifeconsulting.com slash live. And a reminder for all those audience members here who have joined with us live, we will honor anonymity. We will only say your name if you manually type it in along with your question or comment.

[00:00:50] So, with that, let me talk to you about Richard. Dr. Richard Windmann, PhD, was a victim of protracted childhood sexual abuse. And I had to look that up. Protracted means a long time occurring sexual abuse from the ages of seven until 17. Wow.

[00:01:10] And he estimates he's been raped by hundreds, if not over a thousand men during that 10-year period after doing advocacy work with SNAP, the Survivor Network for Those Abused by Priests. And then five years ago, he started his own advocacy nonprofit, 501c3, called Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse, SCSA.

[00:01:34] And if you listened to previous episodes, that's the group that Luke Wiersma is affiliated with as well, and he's been on our podcast several times. And SCSA has over 37,000 members worldwide. That's impressive.

[00:01:51] And SCSA offers peer-led support meetings, one-on-one consultations, mental health and legal referrals, in addition to championing statute of limitations eliminations, yay, with legislative look-back windows. The first law passed was in Louisiana, where the Catholic Church challenged the law up to the Louisiana Supreme Court and was upheld.

[00:02:18] Richard graduated from Loyola University College of Law School in 2022 as a Distinguished Fellow. We are going to begin, like we do most episodes, with four questions. Now it's time for four questions, that part of the podcast, when we get to know our guest a bit better by asking a few questions. Let's go. So, Richard, what is your favorite food memory?

[00:02:44] I was born in New Orleans. I lived there for about 35 years. It's just the most incredible food in the world, all of it. Oh, yes. Well, you know, I don't have a specific food memory, but I can tell you that my go-to is a medium-rare ribeye. So you love steak? Oh, I love it, yeah. Yes, which is funny. My wife absolutely loves steak, and I am not a steak person. I don't know what it is.

[00:03:12] I just never cared for steak. I love, I mean, I like hamburger, love ribs and chicken and all that, but I'm just not big on steak. She loves steak. Is she not a vegan or a nothing like that, right? Oh, no, not at all. No, give me a plate of ribs or Carolina barbecue. Thank you. So usually when I'm off on one of these retreats and so forth, she'll buy herself a nice steak and cook it up and not have to worry about me and having to pick something for me, too.

[00:03:41] So she waits until we do that. She sounds like a special lady. Oh, very much, yes. We just celebrated 34 years together, in fact. Oh, and by the way, I love Cajun food. Tons of Cajun food. And yeah, I've had alligator and all that. It tastes like chicken. It does. Except the tail, because I think it's more muscular, it's more beefy because the tail has so much muscle.

[00:04:10] But yeah, it depends on which body part and how it's cooked and so forth. But yeah, it's really good. In Louisiana, we don't fear the teeth. We fear the tail. Right. Yeah. Very, very powerful for sure. So what is your favorite Christmas or holiday memory? My favorite Christmas holiday is right before my abuse started. I was six years old. Parents were separated.

[00:04:34] But at that particular Christmas, my dad got out of the hospital. He had a quadruple bypass and my mom was taking care of it. So I was fortunate enough to have both my parents and my brother there. And man, they really overdid the gifts. It was really nice. Hmm. Yeah. Wow. Anything else? Just that they did a lot of gifts that year or what made it special? It was about seeing my parents together again.

[00:05:01] Oh, yeah. Yes. Yes. That makes sense for sure. So what is your favorite church or house of worship memory? None. I started out in the Catholic faith. I became a super Catholic. I made communion. I was confirmed. I became a liturgist, a Eucharistic minister and a fourth degree of Columbus. Oh, wow.

[00:05:25] It got to the point so bad that I left the church. However, I do practice my Catholicism inside SESA. There's a lot of Catholic survivors who struggle with their faith. We found a priest. His name's Rosard Biernatt. He was molested by a priest in a seminary and he blew the whistle.

[00:05:45] They took away all his priestly duties with the exception of doing private masses. And so we have a survivor's mass every Sunday for those who choose to attend. It's not something that we really advertise, but when you're doing a one-on-one with somebody or you get somebody in a group that's really struggling with their faith, we approach them.

[00:06:07] And we do it every Sunday at 10 a.m. Central Time. And it's extremely therapeutic. But because, you know, you can't trust the priest, but this priest you can trust. Right. And so everybody feels safe and comfortable. I love going to it. Wow. We do it every time for four years.

[00:06:32] Yes, wonderful. So you do have a favorite memory. It's with that group. So there you go. Yeah, but it's reason. Well, but that's okay. You can have reason memories too. Yes. So what is your favorite scripture or any inspirational quote that has helped you on your spiritual journey? And what about it speaks to you? I think it's self-explanatory. It comes from the book of Luke.

[00:06:56] What was he who scandalizes the little ones? Better than a millstone be hung around his neck and cast into the sea. Right. Yep. Yep. Millstone. Yep. Makes a lot of sense. And that perfect segue into telling us your story. And I'm sure your story, like a lot of ours, it oftentimes not linear, but kind of bounces back and forth as things are disclosed or discovered along your journeys.

[00:07:25] So I would love to know more about that and how it was all for over 10 years, seven until 17, what all happened with that. And then talk about your healing journey, what you've been doing to help find healing, what things have worked.

[00:07:47] And I love to ask what things that you tried that absolutely didn't work because yeah, it's not always easy to find healing and some things work really well and some things do not work at all. And different people have different success on that. And then also I would love to hear more about what you're doing today and how you're working with Snap and now SCSA, which is now huge. I'm so impressed. So I'd love to learn more about that as well.

[00:08:16] Okay. So I started at seven, like I tell you at six, you know, my dad came home for healing from a surgery after he's healed up. He split again. He took off. So mom's single. We don't have a whole lot of money. He's very stingy with the money. They never divorced, but they were separated. But my dad led my mother to believe that they were divorced.

[00:08:38] And he was very, very stingy with the money. The Boy Scouts Troop 137, it's, you can just Google it and you'll see. They started canvassing poor neighborhoods. We were in a very poor neighborhood in New Orleans. Okay. Yeah. I've, I've heard about this case in New Orleans. Okay. I've heard a lot about this case. Please continue. Yeah. So they, you know, they were canvassing neighborhoods. My mom wasn't at home.

[00:09:07] And my thing was, I wanted to be evil. And I built this gigantic ramp. I've never went on it before. I tried to brace the bottom so it wouldn't bend. Uh-huh. And I just, these two guys pulled up and said, what are you doing? And all my friends are there too. Oh, like I'm about to jump that ramp. And they're like, can we watch? I'm like, yeah, sure.

[00:09:36] And I went to the end of the block and I just pedaled as fast as I could. I hit the ramp. The brace comes off. It catapults me in the air. And I come down with my teeth on the gooseneck. Wow. Yeah. For those that don't know, the gooseneck is the part that connects the handlebars. Actually, I needed that explanation too. It's wow. I was bleeding like a pig. All my friends, except for one, took off. Wow.

[00:10:05] Where's your mom? And my friend Joey said, well, she's at work right now. And they're like, get in the car. We're going to bring you to the hospital. And they did. They brought me to the hospital, but they warned me that the only way they're going to treat you is if they think I'm your father. So you're going to have to call me dad. Went to the hospital and they were like, there's nothing we can do for him. He needs a dentist. And so I had a family dentist.

[00:10:33] I had a hard time explaining how to get there, but we just started cruising around. So I started recognizing things and, and we finally found his office and we went in there and he goes, boy, you really screwed up this time. And he looked me over and goes, I need chip one tooth. It's just going to take time to heal. After it heals, then we'll take care of the chip tooth. And by the way, who are you guys? We just, the daddy thing stopped. No, we were just driving down the road.

[00:11:01] And, you know, we saw him do this and his friend told us that his mom was in at home. And he said, boy, Betty's going to be pissed when she hears about this. And they gave me a, he gave me a big, huge envelope of Percocet and I went home. And my mom's home. She's panicking. There's a ramp. And she didn't know that I jumped bicycles. I kept on a seat. Right. Of course. There's blood all over the sidewalk.

[00:11:28] As she was just panicking, she called the police, the local hospitals. And they brought me home and they introduced themselves to my mom. And there's a sort of an element of trust there because they took care of me and brought me to the dance. Right. Right. And they said, hey, we're looking for Boy Scouts. We have a troop in New Orleans East and we're having a hard time getting kids to join. Would you mind if he was to join the troop?

[00:11:59] She was like, you know, we're really poor. We can't afford uniforms. And they're like, no, no, no, no, no, no. You won't have to pay a dime. Not a dime. And they asked me what my hobby was. And it was snake hunting. And they're like, me too. Of course. Oh, yeah. I was sold. I'm into Boy Scouts now. And I felt special because I actually was into Cub Scouts.

[00:12:22] So I thought that somehow that I was advanced and I was going to skip the wee blows and go straight into the Boy Scouts. Troop 137, just to make it short, was a front for an international pedophile ring. And that's where the bulk of the actual abuse happened. And, you know, Scout Masters would fly in from out of town just visiting, you know.

[00:12:49] And they'd send me to the hotel rooms and it would happen again. You know, I stopped counting at 10 because what's the purpose in counting at that point? But the first time was with the Scout Master. It was just oral sex. Mm-hmm. I didn't know what to think about it. Didn't feel good. Didn't feel bad. I guess that's just something that happens. But the second one there was at the church that was sponsoring the troop.

[00:13:19] And, man, I got sodomized for the first time. I was screeching in pain. Oh, by the way, they wanted my brother to be in the Boy Scouts too. And he was in the room as well. He was, I was always a skinny kid. But my brother was big. And so he fought it off.

[00:13:37] And the other Scout Master wound up controlling him and putting him face down on the floor and then taking him by the hair and making, making my own brother look at me while I was being sodomized. And it was, I can't describe the pain. I can't describe the pain. Right. Seeing him hurt, but also knowing that he was watching and forced to watch what was happening. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:14:05] And it was, let's try a different lube. How about some KY instead of Vaseline? Okay. He, stop crying. Stop crying, you know. And then he gets a third Scout Master to do oral sex on me to see if that would ease the pain. And this guy was, his name was Tom Woodall. And he was brutal. He was just, there's nothing nice. There was no such a thing as, oh, the head's coming in now. We're going to take it slow. Just relax.

[00:14:35] He just jammed me, man. Right. And then the people from out of town come in and they always filmed me and they always took photographs. You know, the Boy Scouts has a too deep policy now where there must be two Scout Masters. And I actually work with the new guy that's in charge of youth protection at the Boy Scouts. And I told him, I said, how is that going to work?

[00:15:00] I had four Scout Masters, a four deep policy, one from the behind, one from the front, one filming and one taking pictures. So, yeah. Yeah. So how's that going to work? Two deep policy. And that happened for a while, years. I asked the man about three years. Every single weekend. Vacations. Sometimes during the week, if it was a holiday. That's where I come up with that number. And sometimes five times a day. Sometimes.

[00:15:29] And yeah, that's the kiddie porn. And I, a couple of months ago, I got a call. A pedophile has called me up and harassed me, by the way. And one called and said. Oh, even now as an adult? Yes. Oh, wow. They say, the last one said, hey, Richard, I know that you're aging, but I want to let you know that I still find you attractive.

[00:15:50] And, you know, if you're feeling bad about yourself, we want you to know that you're considered the Linda Lovelace of the child pornography industry. And I got to take the calls because I got survivors with shotguns in their mouth and I have to answer the phones. Right. It's one of those things. So they get busted. I testified at the trials. Right. I thought it was over.

[00:16:14] The district attorney, Harry Connick, thought it would be a good idea if policemen were to be like a big brother or whatever to the victims of the Boy Scouts. And I was initially assigned to one cop. And then like two weeks later, I'm assigned a different one. And his name was Stanley Burkhart. And he was the commander of the pedophile unit and the child sex abuse division. And he did the same thing to me. He brought me up to police headquarters on the third floor.

[00:16:44] There's a special evidence room just for kiddie porn. And he was the only one that had a key. And he brought me in. And he started showing me the kiddie porn. I'm like, oh, my God. And just like the first time, the first time it happened, you freeze. I froze for the second time as he took down my pants and started doing oral sex on me. Later on, I guess I aged out or whatever.

[00:17:11] He would use me as bait to make cases against pedophiles. So he would put me on a mailbox in a French Quarter. Pedophiles would pick me up, have sex with me. He'd make a case and arrest them. So he used me for bait. But you wouldn't stop it before the sexual act. You would go all the way and then they would rest after. Wow. Yeah.

[00:17:37] And he was so gracious that he let me keep the 20 bucks they would throw at me, whatever. Wow. And then it was a priest at Jesuit High School. I started out with the janitor. And he was sodomizing me in the basement of Jesuit High School. And the priest walks in and I go, it's over. The priest is here. It's over. Finally.

[00:18:03] And the priest puts his hand on a smile on my back and he says, relax. And then the priest starts masturbating. And they were all interconnected, you know, doing the research over the years. And that's just me, but many people. You know, I was playing basketball in the back of Jesuit High School. And there's the cop, Stanley Burkhart, using his undercover name, which is Jack DiCaprio.

[00:18:31] And he's talking to the janitor. So they knew each other. Further research, one of my friends died at the hands of Stanley Burkhart. And I found out just recently that my friend was also in Troop 137. So all three cases are connected. People ask me that all the time. Really, Richard? Like the Boy Scouts, then a cop, then a priest. And that's true. You know, a federal judge in North Carolina found me credible.

[00:18:59] And Stanley Burkhart, not credible. The Jesuits settled with me for a half a million dollars. And so that's credible. Stanley Burkhart's credible. And the Boy Scouts is also credible, too, because I testified and sent all of them to jail for the rest of their lives. Right, right. And they all died there with the exceptional one. I know two different documentaries came out recently in the last few years.

[00:19:29] The Boy Scouts Honor, which was on Netflix and Leave No Trace. You were, okay. And Leave No Trace, which was on Hulu. Were you a part of that? I know that's where I heard this story. But I don't know if Leave No Trace specifically talked about the New Orleans case or not. I don't know. I didn't watch it. The Netflix one, they interviewed me. And it also provided documentation and research to the project. Right. Wow.

[00:19:59] So this continued until you were 17? With all these different groups? Yeah, yeah. Eventually I got old enough. I didn't believe the priest and the janitor's threats anymore. So I just said, fuck you guys, bye. So, you know, the abuse of Jesuit ended because I just didn't believe their threats. They would kill me, kill my parents. Whatever. You know, bye-bye, assholes. Like Stanley Burkhart had a badge and a gun.

[00:20:26] And I tried, when he wanted me to go out and sit on that mailbox, sometimes I would tell him no. And he'd pick me up by the throat and put his pistol in my mouth. And he said, you'll be done when I say you are. So I was kind of trapped. I started running away and he would find me. I was working in Fort Erie, Canada on a racetrack and he found me. Wow. I couldn't escape.

[00:20:55] And it's so I was I was still being abused. And when he got arrested for the first time, the postal inspector did an investigation. And he was charged with kiddie porn. And of course, the first thing he says, well, I'm the commander of the pedophile unit. I use this material to, you know, catch pedophiles. They didn't even believe it for a second. So that's my story in a nutshell. Right.

[00:21:25] So when did you first disclose to your mother or to anyone that wasn't a perp or like the police officer, potential perp who became a perp? When did you first tell anyone? I mean, your brother obviously knew. When were you able to? You want to know what happened to him? Yes. Huge behavioral problems. They put him in a special school and called him a moron. He acted out.

[00:21:54] He was very, very violent. They sent him to Hope Haven in New Orleans. Google that. He was molested at Hope Haven. So he was molested there as well. Yeah. A lot of residential school programs, what have you. Yeah. There's constant reports of abuse because vulnerable populations, no matter what the reason is for the dormitory environment.

[00:22:23] Whether it's a private school or a military school or a special needs school or whatever, you know, it's a vulnerable population. And that's where pedophiles will seek to find jobs and so forth. So, yeah. Jobs of authority where they have access to children. And Hope Haven was run by the Catholic Church. Right. He ran away three times. And it's across the river.

[00:22:49] So you have to catch a ferry if you're a kid, if you want to get across. Every single time, the priest and the Gretna Police Department were there waiting for him. And the Gretna Police simply didn't believe my brother and they gave him back to the priest. So, yeah, it's been a rough run for a lot of people. It seems like New Orleans is like ground zero for this pedophile activity.

[00:23:19] I know it happens everywhere. Even in Brazil, we've got members from Japan and Brazil. Brazil, Sweden. It just seemed like a hotbed. Right. All of my kids, all of my friends, my childhood friends were raped by the janitor at Jesuit High School. Wow. So, going back to the question, when did you first disclose to anyone outside of this? Well, the Boy Scouts happened. And, you know, back then, it's the late 70s probably. They have a...

[00:23:48] First off, my mom, it destroyed her. But she was also guilty too. I found out that she suspected that I was being molested. And she went to the Boy Scouts to confront them. And in exchange for having access to me, they would pay her rent and her electrical bill. My dad shows up on the scene again. And they're fighting right in front of me about whose fault it is. Because this is on TV every night for like a month.

[00:24:16] And so, they knew that I was molested by the Boy Scouts. They didn't know about Stanley Burkhart. And they didn't know about the police. But the sketch artist in the courtroom drew me like a Mona Lisa. Everybody knew that I was the Ricky. Wow. It's like everybody. Yeah. Wow. So, what did they say when they realized, wait, this is our son? Did they talk to you about it?

[00:24:47] Or... My parents? Yes. No, they just argued. And my dad looked at me very briefly. Square in the eye. He said, I'm going to kill those motherfuckers. He goes down to the corner bar. Gets wasted. And he tells all the patrons in the bar that he's raising a faggot. And they chased him out of town. And I never saw him again. Wow. So, your father, they chased him out of town. Wow. Wow. So, you never heard from him after that? No. Wow.

[00:25:16] It's kind of funny. People think that people that hang out in bars don't have any morals. But apparently, this patronage did. Right. They just ran on that. Wow. Wow. In terms of adult, tell me if you agree. You've been doing this work for a while. Mm-hmm. There's two ways that a victim of childhood sex abuse handles this. The younger they are, it tends to be repressed memories. Right. That was my story, yes.

[00:25:46] Yeah. But when you've been raped for a decade. Right. There's no way you forget that. So, you file away. It becomes a recessed memory. Right. And I took the latter path. And I, well, first off, I had to prove to myself that I wasn't gay. And I went down to the convention center. I found out where all the conventions were going to be. And I go to the hotel bars. I just turned 18.

[00:26:16] And you could drink at 18 back then. And I'd slip the bartender 20 bucks to pretend like he knows me. And I just worked my magic on ladies. And I went on for probably six or seven months. And then it occurred to me, in my juvenile mind, it's consensual sex. We're all adults. We're open to our thing.

[00:26:41] But in my child brain, I thought that I was using the same grooming techniques on the women that were used against me. Yes. And interesting insight. Yeah. I promptly committed suicide. I couldn't even look at myself in the mirror. Right. I say committed suicide because it wasn't a call for help. I intended to die. They found me. I was in a coma for five days before I woke up.

[00:27:10] And then after that, something magical just happened in my life. I'm going to college. And I just, you know, victims and survivors, there's a million things going on in our heads. You know, we live in our amygdala. We're five miles ahead of the plane going 500 miles an hour. I'm always working on 20 different problems that I think are going to happen.

[00:27:36] So I'm thinking of scenarios and how I'm going to handle it and, you know, stuff like that. Very, very, very busy mind. And I took all of that mental energy and I poured it into my academics. And I did incredibly well. And it was the same thing with my career. My career is incredible. I work for the biggest names. Cisco Systems, IBM, Palo Alto, International Network Service. It's just on and on and on and on. And I had a family.

[00:28:06] I have a beautiful family. I do. A boy and a girl. Things just started magically happening to me. I believe there are blessings from God, to be honest with you. Right. And I thought everything was okay until I was 47. And the Sandusky case. Yeah. Journalists, the journalist did too good of a job describing the details. I see pedophiles on the news every night.

[00:28:35] And it doesn't trigger me. But boy, Sandusky. And I know about his man cave at the house with his wife cooking just 10 feet away. We're always raping kids and taking kids into the shower. That's stuff that I didn't need to know. And I blew a huge gasket. And I hit the bottle really bad. So you were obviously those memories were triggered by that. I just looked it up. So this is back in 2011 when the case broke. Yeah.

[00:29:04] And started becoming public. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, I'd been sober my entire life. My first drop on alcohol was when I saw the Sandusky case. Really? Wow. Yeah, it was. And, you know, alcohol for me wasn't a problem. It was my solution for a while. Right. I approached the Jesuits about what happened to me. I went for spiritual guidance and psychological help.

[00:29:33] And they're like, nah, we're just going to give you a whole bunch of money. Shut up, boy. It was literally like that. Just, you know. Well, as long as you're giving away money, I'll take all of it. You know? And after that, I felt guilty because I just accepted half a million dollars from my church. And so the mindfuck just kept coming, kept coming. I wanted to tell my story to the world.

[00:30:02] But it had been my experience, especially listening to other victims and survivors. That I wouldn't be believed. You know, what your pedophile tells you when he's grooming you is nobody's going to believe you. I'm a priest. You're a priest from mid-city. Do you actually think they're going to believe you? Go ahead. No. And your frontal cortices aren't even developed yet. And you're programmed to believe that well until adulthood.

[00:30:29] And so I leaked my story to the press. I gave them the Jesuit settlement document. I also, because I knew I was dealing with evil, evil people, I recorded all of the negotiations. All of this. Right. And I blasted it to the press. Everybody wanted to talk to. But there was one reporter named Ramon Vargas.

[00:30:57] And I asked him, I asked all the reporters, why are you interested in this story? And he said, when I heard the recordings, I heard my own eighth grade teacher, a Jesuit, interrogating you. And my toes curled. I'm like, that's my reporter. That's who I'm going to talk to. Yeah. And yeah. And so the world finally knew my story. Wow. But I only told the story in reverse. I told him about the Jesuits first.

[00:31:26] And we established a trust relationship. Oh, did you know I was in troop 137 too? Really? And then Burkhardt. I told him in reverse order intentionally. Because, you know, there's no way anybody's going to believe that all of that abuse happened over a decade. Right. Yeah. You're fucking nuts. You're lying. Yeah. Yeah. That's how it goes.

[00:31:51] So I had to have proof in the form of documentation and audio recordings to where I would feel safe enough that I would be believed. Right. Right. Absolutely. Right. Now, in between then and here, you know, I'm going to say alcohol rehab. I've shared my stories. But that's the first time I went public on my own.

[00:32:13] Now, you mentioned with the abuse and the trafficking, it was documented with film and photography. Yeah. Have that officer kind of did his own thing as well. Have you been able to recover any of that? Or because I know National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, they keep a database. Have you contacted them about that? I haven't. I did tell the police.

[00:32:42] Well, I didn't tell the police. Actually, the police came to me and told me it was there. So the pedophiles didn't need to call me. I already knew it was there. Right. So have they been able to take it down or claim it? If you can think about it, it's on the dark web. Right. It's on Tor. And I'll tell you this because I'm a computer scientist.

[00:33:03] The only way that you could possibly track it down is a technique called endpoint correlation, where you have a sniffer, you know, right before it goes into the onion and a sniffer when it comes out the onion. And only then it's not 100% accurate. Right. You can trace that. Right. And they're sitting on regular servers all over the world. And now everything's in the cloud.

[00:33:30] So it doesn't make a difference if you delete it one place. It's just going to replicate back. Right. But if it's in the system and they can tag it to you, then when they go through and fight these places, they can say, no, we know who this is. And no, no, no, no, no. And because they have a human adult tied with that image and it gives them more power, something like that. And they can take it, take it down when they can find it. So that is something to consider.

[00:34:00] I know I've done that. They have, of course, haven't followed up in a couple of years. But, yeah, they have pictures of me at that age when I was trafficked. And in case I did end up in some pornography, my memories are sketchy because there was a lot of repressed memories. But, yeah. What age did you find out that you were on the Internet?

[00:34:23] They have not found it on the Internet, but I gave them my information saying, yes, so I'm on the database for them to search it. So if they find something, they can match it to me. Last I heard, they had not after about a year. After I first disclosed to them, about a year later, they said, no, we have not found anything currently, but we will add you to the database. Well, I'm telling you because I know my job that everything is in the cloud now.

[00:34:50] It's replicated to 20, if not 30 other sites for security and redundancy for not losing the data. And every one of those sites has a backup SAN volume and they have a business continuity volume. So if you delete it, it's just going to come back. Right. I understand. So you've come out of this and what things did you do to start your healing journey?

[00:35:17] Obviously, all this Sandusky stuff came out in 2011. And it sounds like that kind of triggered you into really opening this up and finding healing. Is that what I'm hearing? Yeah. Yeah. And maybe you'll agree with me or not, but once you publicly tell your story, it feels like the world is lifted off your shoulder. But then you go through an anger phase. Yes. That was me. I was very, very angry.

[00:35:44] Well, because it forces you to deal with your stuff because now you have it out there. And then it forces you to confront everything. So, yeah, you go through the anger and you go through the sadness and the grief and the loss. And whereas before you were just shoving it down. So you didn't have to deal with it. Now it's out and it's open. So, yeah, everything comes out with it. Absolutely. A week after my story came out, me and my wife and my kids, we went.

[00:36:10] We were in New Orleans and we stopped in my favorite restaurant. And just everybody in the place was staring at me, whispering. I mean, if I look back at them, they wouldn't break eye contact at all. And the manager of the restaurant said, I'm sorry, sir, you and your family are going to have to leave. Wow. Yeah. But then I'm like, hell, let's go to Mississippi, go to casino, get dinner there. And we go there.

[00:36:38] And the security guard was, you were on TV today. Because I did many interviews. Thanks, man. And I'm walking away with my family and somebody grabs me from behind. And I turn around and it's a little old grandmother telling me how proud she is of me. Oh, wow. It was super cool. And I recognized the value of the media right away.

[00:37:08] I learned that if a reporter ever calls you for an interview and you say no, they're not going to call you back. And so I took advantage of that. Over the past five years, we've exposed a lot of people in terms of the cover up that's been happening. We found priests that are not on the credibly accused list.

[00:37:27] We've got three federal judges to recuse themselves from Catholic cases because in their disclosure, they said that they didn't have any connections. One of them, his wife gave the church $150,000 and we found that out. Wow. So he had to recuse himself too. So there's a little anger, a little revenge in it in the beginning.

[00:37:54] But over time, it's, I mean, when you're angry, you'll fight anybody over anything. And today I picked my battles a little bit more carefully. And like you said, the growth of SCSA is just incredible. Well, Snap's been in business since I think the early season. They had 30,000 members. And just in five years, we have 37,000 members, which is very stumbling. Right.

[00:38:24] Our groups are alive. They're growing. They're thriving. We lost a couple of people along the way. It's, and that's really at the heart of my healing, you know. Right. But, you know, the psychological, psychiatric sciences are way behind on this. Yeah, it's hard to find a good counselor that is trauma-informed and trained. Absolutely.

[00:38:54] Though it is getting better. There's a lot more, just in the last 10 years, a lot more brain science and so forth. And different techniques on healing for trauma going down deep. So there's a lot out there. So telling your story seems like that was a significant milestone in your healing. What else have you tried since then? And obviously the service work that you do with SCSA and what you did previously with Snap,

[00:39:21] that definitely is helping working with others who are dealing with this. But what other things have you done? So it sounds like you've tried different therapy options in the past and sounds like a lot of them may not have been very successful. Well, of course, the self-medicating part is never good. Right. Yes. I think it's just maturity over time with the other stuff that you mentioned. I get angry all the time, but I don't express it anymore.

[00:39:52] Right. Which isn't necessarily healthy, but yes, there's healthy ways to express anger. But yes, I get it. Absolutely. Anger is a necessary emotion. When it goes down, you got to go kick somebody's butt. That's just the way it goes. But yeah, I don't express anger anymore. I feel like I've grown 80 years in the past 11 years that I've been doing this work. Yeah. In terms of maturing. Right. Right.

[00:40:20] They say the abuse kind of stunts your maturity level. And then when you start your healing process, then you start maturing. And I've been feeling that as well. But I think it kind of fast forwards. It's not linear time, but it fast forwards the more healing you get and so forth. Then, yeah, you absolutely mature. And yes, I'm feeling that for myself as well. I get goofier too.

[00:40:44] Somebody told me the other day, they said, you know, you're just like running around in a pasture. You're knocking over beehives and everybody gets stung. I don't know whether to take that as a compliment or not. But I am living my childhood, not my second childhood because I never had a childhood. So I'm living my childhood right now. I do what I want on my own terms. Well, you have the freedom of experiencing joy that you didn't have before.

[00:41:14] And having that freedom and especially that little Ricky inside of you who wants to be free. And have that childhood he never had. So, yeah, it's all that coming out. I love the quote. We are all the ages we have ever been. We are still all those ages. So, yeah, that little Ricky is absolutely expressing himself. And, yeah, good on you. You know what goes a long way, at least for me, is respect.

[00:41:43] You know, I've spoken to psychology departments at Stanford, University of Texas, Boston. And they're like really engaged and they want to hear what you have to say. Right. And I tell them this all the time. Listen, here's the DSM-5. Describe is all these disorders, but there's no cure for it. I'll have it for the rest of my lives unless you guys figure it out. Mm-hmm. Right. Right.

[00:42:13] And for them to take that to heart means the world to me. Right. Right. And they are working on it. There's different techniques out there that are used, like EMDR, which is like the big one. Though I've never experienced that. My own therapist did other things. But, yeah, there's definitely different ways. What about creative endeavors like music or art therapy or anything like that? I got two gold records and a platinum record and one Grammy. Really?

[00:42:43] Yeah. And Scout Signer was recently Emmy nominated. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Excellent. I've been a recording session bassist. Wow. So, a bass guitar or the bass, the upright bass? Either one. Or both? Really? Wow. Yes. My son's a musician as well. And I know he loves expressing all of his stuff through music, which I think is healing for him. Very cool. Yes.

[00:43:12] And I said this on many episodes, creative endeavors, art, music, poetry, all of that. They're all right brain activities. And guess where trauma gets stored in the brain? In the right brain. So, those creative endeavors can access those traumas in a deeper way than simply talking about it or talk therapy. Things like that. That won't necessarily touch it. But you do something creative.

[00:43:42] Your brain can heal because it can express those emotions, those feelings, those memories, and help resolve those working through those creative endeavors. I've done ego state therapy as both a primer and an adjunct to EMDR. Didn't work. What's really effective for me, I think the most effective is, I think, God bless the Boy Scouts. They paid for my counseling for the rest of my life. I have.

[00:44:08] And that's part of the, it frustrates me about the psychological community. First off, victims and survivors, a lot of them are indigent. And the ones that have insurance, they don't take insurance. They can take insurance. There are billing codes for it. But rather than due to billing at the doctor's office, they put it on you, which does what? It creates stress. And all that stuff.

[00:44:33] So, I'm very, very grateful that the Boy Scout writes my therapist a really big check. The thing that's most helpful for me is, with my therapist, just talking. Just talking. And the support groups every Saturday that we do. And it's not just the right side of the brain. But did you know that the amygdala also stores memory? Right. Right. Absolutely. Yeah. So, it's a rough ride.

[00:45:02] I feel like I'm well along on my journey of healing. But, you know, I have to be honest with myself, is that there'll probably not during my lifetime be a cure for it. But definitely, it's a healing journey, for sure. And that's what I've told anyone who's on this road as a survivor. And even more so for those of us who have been trafficked. That, yeah, those wounds go very deep. There was lots of trauma.

[00:45:32] And it's a journey. Absolutely. You just continue on and continue to find different things that work and grow and help others along the way. And we all learn and we all help. This podcast, for me, is very healing. And knowing I'm helping other men and having this safe space where men can come on like yourself and share your stories and inspire others. And that's the theme of my podcast, the power of story.

[00:46:02] That not only does it have the power to allow you to heal as you share, but inspires other men to find healing and to begin their own healing journeys and eventually get to a point where they can tell their stories as well. Yeah. And it's really great that this renaissance has happened since the invention of the internet, because it's not going away now. Our stories are going away. Absolutely. Absolutely.

[00:46:31] They cannot deny that we exist. Yep. Awareness is our number one tool against this, in my opinion. Yes, absolutely. So how did you start? I know you were involved with SNAP, which works with all kinds of clergy abuse, not just Catholic. And so you worked with them for a while. And then what spurred you on to start SCSA? So I revitalized SNAP in New Orleans.

[00:46:59] And then I became SNAP Louisiana. And then I became SNAP for the entire central time zone. And the more higher I got in the organization, the more I was micromanaged. Another thing, caring about other survivors besides victims of priests. Back when I was with SNAP, they didn't do that.

[00:47:25] And the more you do the work, you discover that for the biggest demographic of children that are abused is at the home setting. You know, it's a mother, father, grandparents, the drunk uncle, the babysitter, the friend of a family. And that's a really hard nut to crack for those people looking forward. Absolutely. Which is all of my story because father abused me and then he was also my trafficker. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sorry.

[00:47:55] Yeah. Yeah. But, you know, it's other institutions like the Boy Scouts. Right. And it's not just the Catholics. It's cross denominational. Yes. Yeah. And I got sexually assaulted by a Methodist minister when I was in college. So, yeah. Yeah. So I get it. It's all, all faiths, all religions, all denominations.

[00:48:19] It's everywhere because it's another place where pedophiles can find vulnerable people and take advantage and groom. So, and the grooming, like those guys did, they groomed the parents. They groomed your mother into believing they were safe and helping her boys.

[00:48:46] And they groomed the Boy Scouts into believing that they were safe and had all this wonderful helpfulness. People. That, yes. People ask me all the time, aren't you angry at the Catholic laity? And I'm like, no, because they were perfectly groomed before they groomed the kids. Right. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. And that's anything with institutionalized abuse where it's with athletics or Boy Scouts

[00:49:16] or church or communities of faith, but then also like the celebrities that do these things, that they are an institution and the institution will, all those people who make money or profit from the institution, will protect the institution at all costs and will fight tooth and nail and victim blame and victim shame. And you see that story after story. The Hillsong things in Australia, same thing.

[00:49:43] All these things again and again, it's the same. It's like carbon copy. They just, someone made this blueprint. This is how you do it. And they just applied it in all these different venues and all these different situations to get this successfully working for them for decades upon decades. And what's really disturbing is in the case of the Catholic church, they have no problem talking shit about victims and survivors on TV. Absolutely.

[00:50:13] Right. Yeah. That's, and it's supposed to be my moral authority. You know, in my Catholic formation, when I was a kid, if I told a lie, I was going straight to hell. But yet they sit there in their clown outfits behind a pulpit and they lie every single day to our face. Right. And they will victim blame and so forth. I did reopen my case with the Methodist. And I just happened to disclose the fact that I had uncovered that my father abused me, not

[00:50:42] that I was trafficked, but that my father abused me. Oh, well, that changed the whole thing. And now basically I was damaged goods. So anything that their person did to me, well, any therapy they would pay for would also help me for all the wounds I got from my father. So therefore their responsibility would be less because I was damaged goods. And it's like, wait, this is like the church who's supposed to be there supporting.

[00:51:09] And yeah, they are protecting the institution. That is their goal is to protect the institution. And so they will minimize and lessen and attack the victims who the church should be helping and supporting. But no, they have to protect the institution at all costs, even though that's not who Jesus was. It's like when Jesus overturned the money changers in the church.

[00:51:33] It's that kind of corruption that he would call out. And it's everywhere. It's in all denominations, all faiths. It's everywhere. And it's sad. I believe he's here, but assuming he's not, I don't think Jesus would recognize his bride. Oh, yes. I understand. Yeah. And it's, yeah, it was like with the Jesuits. I went there for help. Psychological. No, no, no, no, no.

[00:52:03] We're just going to give you a boatload of money and shut your mouth and go away. Seriously? There's other kids I know are being molested by Pete Modica, and I can find them for you. And they're like, no, no, no, no, no. Don't do that. I'm like, why not? And they said, well, Richard, some people just don't want to be found. Yeah. Or, yeah, no, some people just don't want to be found out. At Jesuit high school, when my story broke, 70 cases were filed that week.

[00:52:33] Wow. Yeah, I bet. Yeah, so they did want to be found. Right, right. And you think you're the only one. That's the other thing. Yeah. Right, right. Absolutely. So you're now, you've grown SCSA. Tell me briefly how it works. It's all online, but you've got some in-person stuff too? No. No, it's almost 100% Zoom meetings. Okay.

[00:53:00] And just to be perfectly clear, Snap does a lot of good work, but at the time I didn't feel that they were catering or helping the other survivors. And that was really the catalyst for me doing my own thing. And we have different roles too, you know? In some organizations, there's a list of roles, a preamble to the meeting, what you can and cannot say. SCSA meetings, you could say whatever the hell you want. Right.

[00:53:27] And I think that's well-ended to some of the success. You know, out of 37,000 members, there's like 20,000 plus that aren't active. Right. Yeah, I work with Hezboot Material and we have like 5,000 in our online community, but active is maybe about 10% of that who are very, very active. But yeah, they're there.

[00:53:53] So they, yeah, looky-loos, they'll check in and see what's going on and when they have need and so forth. So that's common, but still. And it's seasonal. 37,000, that's big, yes. It's seasonal too. Oh, yes. The audience is very, very low during the summer, but seasonal affective disorder, I guess we'll call it, you know? Right. In late fall and in the dead of winter, that's when everybody attends. Right. Right.

[00:54:19] Plus, we're recording this in October and we're coming up on the holidays here, I know. Yeah. Yeah. That's so triggering, the holidays because of all the stress and so forth that, or I think all support groups, 12-step groups, whatever, that it's a popular time because people are dealing with all those holiday stressors.

[00:54:43] But yes, the seasonal affective disorder as well, but yeah, all those holiday stresses, holiday memories. And for, I mean, for a lot of us, vacations were a big time when, yeah, probably a lot of the abuse happened because there was accessibility because there was no school. So, yeah. I can only imagine because I wasn't molested in a domestic situation, but it would seem like if you were, everything would trigger you. Right. Yeah.

[00:55:13] Lots of triggers. Absolutely. Yes. So, you then got your law degree and you've been fighting the fight in the legal realm as well. So, tell me about that. So, when the law passed in Louisiana unanimously, I hadn't even gone to law school at that point. The reason that I did it, because what's not in the settlement agreement is I get to go to any Jesuit-owned university. Anything I want to take. No admissions, no nothing. Nice.

[00:55:43] Nice. I said, wow. If I learn about the law, I can use that against them. Okay. And the politics side, you know, we had a huge victory in Louisiana. I'm like, hey, let's do it in Texas. Texas is very conservative. They care about their children. Right. And they'll tell you. So, and I'm like, Texas is going to be a breeze. It's been introduced twice that I know of.

[00:56:12] We were involved in the second time. We were much more well organized. We had attorneys, the whole thing. And it died on the House committee. Wow. They didn't read it. Wow. And I'm like, what the hell is going on? And so I tried to get another representative to pick it up and to file it. And I couldn't find anybody. Wow. Yeah.

[00:56:41] Texas is a little bit of everything, depending on where you are. And Texas is a huge state and they do their own thing there. I've been to Texas several times. Metaphiles are creepy. Yeah. Oh, I'm sure. I'm sure. Absolutely. So, yeah. So that's your ultimate goal is to be a voice in person for this issue. And that's wonderful.

[00:57:07] And, you know, Texas at any given session, you know, about 3,000 bills are filed. And, you know, knowing about the legislative process and when you're facing 3,000 bills, you have to pay attention. So I can understand why some bills don't make it out of committee. But this is a very important issue. And it should be the number one heard. Absolutely. Absolutely. Any final thoughts?

[00:57:37] For our listeners out there. I say this all the time and it bears repeating because people keep doing it. Don't go to your own abuser thinking that they're going to help you. Like the church, right? They now have victims, assistant coordinators. And they'll copiously take down every detail and pretend like they're listening. And nothing happens. And you will get a lawyer and they will use your own words against you.

[00:58:06] I've seen it many times happen. Yes. So don't go to the church. But that's just silly. So you go to an attorney and you file a police report. Yep. That's it. Let your attorney worry about all that stuff. Do the police report as a matter of documentation. A lot of people don't have documentation. And that's the sad thing about the statute of limitations with the look back window.

[00:58:32] They argued that the court system would be inundated. The fact, first off, that didn't happen. You know, attorneys are really good at vetting their clients. And even if an attorney believes your story, he has to make a case. And when you talk about 40, 50 years ago, people are dead now. And evidence is lost forever. You know, and so that's the painful part about the look back window.

[00:59:02] The big message is get yourself an attorney. Yep. And make a police report. Yep. Absolutely. Absolutely. And get some help. Right. Thank you for showing the way with all the cases and coming out and shining a light on the different institutional abuses you faced and fighting them. And you're on the forefront. So it's an honor to have you on the podcast.

[00:59:30] Thank you so much for what you do and for coming here and sharing your story. It was a pleasure. And I do appreciate the opportunity that you afforded me to be on your show. Oh, absolutely. And again, if you would like to join us on future episodes with our live audience, you can learn more about that at polarlifeconsulting.com slash live. And join us next time on the Healing for Male Survivors podcast.

[01:00:02] If you would like to learn more about my coaching with Polar Live Consulting, where I provide one-on-one coaching and group coaching, both with a focus on healing for male survivors, reach out to me at polarlifeconsulting.com. That is polar spelled P-O-L-A-R. I would love to hear from you. I want to hear your story. If you would like your story featured on this podcast, contact me via my website.

[01:00:29] If you like this podcast, please rate and review because that's how other people can find me. And I really want to spread this message of healing and hope to others. And remember, you are not alone. Healing is possible. And the abuse was not your fault. Let me repeat that. The abuse was not your fault. See you next time on the Healing for Male Survivors podcast.