Child Rape Victim Pleads with Sen. Elizabeth Warren for Help

September 5, 2017

​The Honorable Elizabeth Warren

2400 JFK Federal Building

15 New Sudbury Street

Boston, MA 02203

Dear Senator Warren:

I am a life long resident of the Commonwealth and a resident of Lynn for the past ten years.

More than fifty years ago, during the first week of July in 1963, I was one of a dozen boys who were kidnapped by two camp counselors at the Stay At Home day camp at the Charlestown Boys Club. During their crime spree, which lasted just that afternoon (though there was much leading up to it), these two individuals repeatedly raped, tortured, and mutilated us inside a small secluded office inside the Jordan Gym. One boy, who contacted me after I went public, underwent years of surgery afterward. And I myself was so horribly mutilated that I could not speak of the things that were done to me for thirty three years, despite two decades of talking therapy, first with a reputable child psychiatrist and then with the Co Director of Primary Care Psychiatry at the Massachusetts General Hospital. My three years of treatment with the child psychiatrist nearly brought me to speak, which resulted in a transient psychosis that required a month long hospitalization at MGH in 1972, when I was twenty.

I finally found a way to brave my unspeakable torment in 1996, when I was forty four years old, and I immediately contacted the Boys and Girls Club of Boston to ask for their help with my recovery, which they have steadfastly refused, unequivocally and categorically, ever since. In addition, they denied any knowledge of what had happened, demanded proof as a condition of further consideration, and dared me to obtain that proof. Over the years that followed, I actually did provide them with proof, which they invariably rejected as unconvincing, and then repeatedly moved the goal post for me by raising their demands until they required nothing less than corroboration from someone else who was in the room with me when it happened.

When I provided them corroboration from the victim who underwent surgery to repair his injuries, they said nothing and maintained their now baseless refusal to help me. When I provided them with the criminal record of Edward Darragh, who ran their swimming program for many years prior to the incident that I reported, and which showed that he was caught raping little boys in 1966 (only after being kicked out of the Boys Club, where he apparently enjoyed protection) and was finally incarcerated for life as a serial child rapist at MCI Gardner in 1984, they verified my report (off the record) but did not credit it to my allegations. When I provided them with my medical records proving that my injuries were the result of an incident at the Charlestown Boys Club when I was a boy, they dismissed my records out of hand as unconvincing. Later, they tried to use them to defame me. And when I provided them with the first hand account of the assistant camp director who claimed that the Boys Club people knew what had happened the very next day and immediately moved to cover it up, they frightened him into silence.

I have tracked down the two individuals who perpetrated this crime. I know who they are, where they are, and where they work. I also have proof that the Boys Club people are in touch with one of them, and I have proof that the Boys Club people are providing him with counsel.

Neither one of these two individuals was ever punished for what they did. And at least one of them fled the state, thereby tolling the statute of limitations. I believe that he can be prosecuted for his crimes, and I wish to see him prosecuted, but I believe the authorities here in the Commonwealth are protecting the Boys and Girls Club and assisting their coverup. Therefore, I am seeking federal help.

During the course of my efforts to obtain justice in this matter, which date back to 1996, I contacted former Attorney General Tom Riley, former Suffolk County DA Ralph Martin, and current Suffolk County DA Daniel Conley. None of them would help me. And DA Conley’s response was most telling, with regard to a cover-up.

I met with four people at DA Conley’s office: Assistant DA Catherine Tucker, who is now an attorney in private practice in New Hampshire, a second staff member, a Victim’s Advocate, and a state trooper. The first thing ADA Tucker told me was that in all instances, the DA’s office recorded their meetings with victims of sexual abuse, but that in my case they were not going to make a recording. I took that to mean that the DA’s office had been recruited into a cover-up and would not lift one finger to help me, which is what happened. Nonetheless, I told them everything I have just told you and much more. They asked for all of my documentation, which, given its voluminous size, I offered to assemble and organize for them and then deliver it shortly afterward, and they agreed. After the meeting, they refused to accept or return my phone calls, and they never followed up with me in writing or otherwise. However, DA Conley sent the Boys Club attorneys a letter, which stated unequivocally that they saw no evidence supporting my allegations. True, they saw no evidence because we agreed I would provide it to them in an organized bundle and they subsequently refused all contact with me. But that letter, which is now the property of the Boys and Girls Club of Boston, is a categorical but entirely specious exoneration by the Suffolk County District Attorney. And I think it evinces a clear wish on the part of the DA to protect the Boys Club.

Three years after I contacted the Boys Club and told them what had happened to me, the Boston Globe reported that Charlestown resident Brendan Coleman sexually assaulted an 11 year old boy “in a secluded area of the Charlestown Boys Club.” In my mind, there was no doubt that the “secluded area” was the same small office where I had been hurt nearly four decades earlier. And I was surprised to hear of this happening again, especially after recently telling the Boys Club people what had happened to me. In fact, in light of this assault, I warned people of the danger I perceived, whether it be a callous disregard for the safety of children or something much worse, and the Boys Club people took a panicked and clearly desperate offense with my warning. They denied that Mr. Coleman assaulted anybody on their premises and attributed the error to a mistaken report provided by the Suffolk County DA’s office to the newspapers, which I suggest is laughable, especially in light of Mr. Conley’s obvious slant, as evidenced in the aforementioned letter. The same newspaper story quoted people who knew Mr. Coleman attesting to the fact that he operated wherever sports were being played in Charlestown, just not the Charlestown Boys Club, according to the Club’s attorney.

Lastly and most importantly, I would like to point out a final, very telling fact. When I contacted the Boys Club people the first time in September 1996 to tell them what had happened to me in 1963, the best defense they could offer was that there was a window in the room where I allege this happened, which is a gym office subdivided by a partial wall in the middle of the room. In fact, at the time of the incident, there were two small half moon windows near the ceiling overlooking the gym, whose high position prevented anyone from seeing in or out of the room. Later, immediately after this incident, the Boys Club installed full pane windows, one on each side of the partially divided room. Please see the attached picture #1. But afterward, at some point, they removed the window on the left side of the room where I allege this assault happened. Please see the attached picture #2. I believe the window was removed to perpetuate what I allege continues to happen. And my allegation is corroborated by former Charlestown Club director Jerry Steimel, who reported that he saw children who were terrified at the prospect of spending time in the Jordan Gym.

Despite all my best efforts, I have never been able to persuade anyone working on behalf of the Commonwealth to investigate what happened in the sixties, and it’s not because of a statute of limitations — because at least one of the perpetrators fled to another state, where he has remained ever since, thereby tolling the statute of limitations, at least with regard to him. The reason I have not been able to persuade the Commonwealth to help me is because they are, by and large, all part of a conspiracy to cover up what has happened there in the past, so I allege.

Thus, I am writing you to ask which federal agencies are likely to help me if I contact them. And given the fact that the window pane put in place to prevent another assault has since been removed, I suggest there is some urgency involved.

The Boys Club people believe the best thing for them is to keep their problem a secret. That is why they left me to suffer for the rest of my life. And I suffered horribly. As I explained, the Boys Club people knew what had happened the next day, according to the assistant camp director, with whom I spoke in December of 2000. On that day in 1963, as I entered the Charlestown clubhouse, a woman approached me and asked if I could tell her what had happened. I couldn’t, and I just stared straight ahead in silence, to which she dismissively replied “Okay.” They made no effort to help me speak. They simply wanted to know if I could. And when they learned that I couldn’t, they felt safe. And they walked away. How many others of the thirteen children in that room were left to suffer and are still suffering today? And given that we were sodomized with a baseball bat, which required at least one child to undergo years of surgery, did anyone die from the injuries they received that day? Has that, too, been covered up?

The best thing for the Boys Club people is for them to bring this problem into the light. And I am the vehicle with which to achieve that exposure. Please, with your help, let it begin with me.

Lastly, unfortunately, there is much, much more at stake than just the safety of children. And I will now try to explain that to you.

I am an American philosopher. I am confident that any Nietzschean scholar at any college or university in the Commonwealth — or anywhere else, for that matter — can tell you about my work. When I was just seventeen years old, I was studying theory of becoming and theory of being in the small library at the Newman Prep School on Marlborough Street in Boston. I didn’t understand it, but I wanted to understand it. I knew that my talent for philosophical thought was special and that I would never find someone with whom I could share it. But I was wrong. Within a year, I discovered the work of German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche and devoted myself to being his pupil. He was the only person I ever found with whom I could share my joy in philosophical thought. (And I am not talking about a joy in dialectics; nor did he, ever.)

After decades of faithful and very laborious study, I became the first person to decrypt his masterpiece, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, and the first person to learn how to read a dithyramb (pronounced as it looks, with the “y” sounding like a soft “i”), and the first person to learn how to practice dithyrambic drama. I can tell you unequivocally that there is not one single person on the planet, other than me, who can tell you even one thing about dithyrambic music, other than a handful who may have heard of it, simply because I have not yet published my writing about dithyrambic music.

A few years ago, I published the first ever rendition of the first dithyramb in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, something which numerous other philosophers and intellectuals had tried unsuccessfully for over a century to do. In that rendition, I proved — with philosophical proofs — that the first dithyramb initiates the actor into the drama, an initiation that I was the first to achieve in 1989. And I have spent all of the time since that initiation enacting Nietzsche’s dithyrambic drama, which provides a map of a deeply religious and transformative journey into the subconscious, wherein the actor wrestles with his demons to free himself from their grip, thereby raising himself (or herself) to a state of profoundly redemptive enlightenment. Let me go on record for saying that there is no education more meaningful, more fundamental, and more rewarding than instruction in the rendition and practice of Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra because it teaches the meaning and value of suffering in life. Western philosophy has never understood this before, let alone found a way to teach it. That’s what this book does. And I am the only one who can provide instruction in its rendition and its enactment. Therefore, I need the freedom to speak of my suffering. And since I alone carried that suffering for forty five years there should be no question that I have the right to speak of it.

But the Boys Club people have done everything in their power to deny me that right and many other rights as well. As a result, I have zero privacy, zero. Aside from placing a recording device in my apartment, monitoring my Google searches, re-routing my US mail and my emails, hacking into my personal computer and both my home phone and my cell phone, shutting down my small business, and endless other criminal intrusions into my privacy and my basic rights (all of which is documented), I have been completely disenfranchised from the Commonwealth’s court system.

For instance, a year or so ago, I was assaulted by a crazy woman while riding the T. She poured a cup of hot coffee on me. The police were summoned, an incident report was made, and I was promised a day in court because I told the responding T police officer that I wanted to press charges. But I never heard back from the court or the police. And when I called the police to inquire, after reading the police report, they told me they don’t spend any time on minor incidents that were nothing more than a mere exchange of words. When I explained that the police report was grossly inaccurate, the detective went to the officer who wrote the report, and he stated that he understood we had made an agreement to let the matter go, in direct contradiction to what I had told the officer. The detective promised me that she would arrange my day in court and send me the appropriate papers. But she never did. Later, I also asked to file a complaint against the officer for filing a false report, and she refused, as did her superior. Eventually, the court itself gave me a court date, after I called and demanded it repeatedly. On that day, when I showed up at Boston Municipal Court, the desk clerk told me my name was not on the list to be heard that day. When I insisted that he show me the list, I pointed to my name on the list and asked where I should go. The T police detective showed up one hour late, never acknowledging me with even a simple “hello,” and never even looking me in the eye. After entering the hearing room, when the clerk magistrate would not look me in the eye either, I knew I was in trouble. The T detective entered the false police report into the record of the hearing, even though she knew from speaking with the responding officer that it was false, and the clerk magistrate refused to issue a complaint, stating that she was basing her decision on the police report. Afterward, when I asked the T detective why she presented the police report as true when she knew that it wasn’t, she refused to speak with me and walked away. I then appealed for a new hearing before a judge. After waiting all day to be heard, Judge Dougan ruled that he would re hear the case and then stated that he would issue the complaint but asked me to re consider going forward. I felt remorseful for taking time away from Judge Dougan and withdrew the complaint, satisfied that at least I had my day in court. I believe that Suffolk County DA Daniel Conley personally orchestrated what happened to me in Boston Municipal Court. And I believe William W. Bain, Jr. has orchestrated the grand persecution I have briefly described for you, of which Mr. Conley’s motivation was simply a part.

This is the kind of disenfranchisement I must deal with repeatedly. I cannot even file a complaint in Small Claims Court, as I have tried on occasion. Once, I asked a judge to restrain a landlord who was trying to evict me by turning off my heat, and he refused, which surprised even courtroom observers who witnessed the exchange. I cannot adequately explain to you how extremely disheartening it is for the Commonwealth to have turned against me, consistently and repeatedly, and for me to know and live with the fact that I have no rights within the court system. All that is missing under this Gulag like persecution is my forced imprisonment, which is precisely what the Boys Club attorney, Peter L. Ebb, threatened to do to me in a letter he sent me in 2006.

Finally, I would like to share with you something that happened to me in 2014. A very wealthy and reputable foundation that awards generous financial resources to individuals who do innovative work in their fields chose me for an award. The Boys Club people found out about it and called their man at GE in Connecticut. He called his man in the City of London, and that man called the foundation and threatened them with financial injury if they proceeded. Wisely, they didn’t. And I have documentation of this interference.

It is not just me that is suffering through all of this. The entire field of Nietzschean scholarship is suffering because these people will not allow anything that might bring notice to my work.

Most nations take enormous pride in the few philosophers that their generations bear as testimony to the integrity of their blood, and they honor their philosophers for the heritage they add to their culture. They do not try to destroy them.

When you consider all the pain and suffering that the Boys Club people visited upon me when I was a child, their ongoing persecution should seem obscene to any decent person. And should the day ever come that I succeed in exposing what happened to me and the other boys at the Charlestown Boys Club, there is not a doubt in my mind that they will make an attempt on my life to stop me once and for all. I have lived with this fear for sixteen years now, since January 27 2001, when someone at the Charlestown Boys Club threatened me explicitly on that date with the words “murder” and “death,” which I reported to Lt. Gary French at the Boston Police Sexual Assault Unit, just across the street from Boston City Hospital.

The Commonwealth and the city of Boston have both turned against me, Senator, a long time ago. And now I have reached the end of my rope. And so, I am preparing for exile, which has been extremely difficult for me, to make a decision to leave my home — forever. If there are no federal agencies that can help me obtain justice, at least tell me which ones might help me to get back my rights and my liberties, which have been grossly violated, as I have documented for you. Finally, please, allow me to state explicitly what is at stake here due to the criminal denial of my freedom.

My teacher, to whose study I dedicated my entire life, himself, dedicated his life to finding a way to restore to a robust health a culture that was in decline – not German culture and certainly not American culture, but rather all of Western culture. And he did that by re evaluating our culture’s most fundamental values and then revoking all of those values, which were entrenched in a philosophy of being, and erecting entirely new values arising from a philosophy of becoming. He could not have done a more fundamental overhaul. Then he went on to invent an entirely new art form as a vehicle for teaching those values.

As his pupil, I am the only one who has learned his new art form, and I am the only one who has spent forty five years playing it out for the purpose of learning those new values. As a result, I am now nearly fully recovered from the abject destruction that was deliberately inflicted upon me when I was a child at the Charlestown Boys Club in such a way as to redeem that suffering in ways that you could not even imagine but which I will surely teach. If I am unable to reclaim my freedom to speak about the things I have experienced, then knowledge of the meaning and redemption of human suffering, which has never before been taught, in all of history, will be lost. That is what is at stake.

Sincerely yours,

James Chester

Enclosures (2)