Charlestown Boys Club – What Happened in 1963?

The Little Room of Horrors Inside the Jordan Gym

The Little Room of Horrors at the Charlestown Boys Club

On June 19, 2003, three years after I wrote to every single member of the Boys Club board (both Boston and nationally), the Boston Globe reported that “Brendan Coleman, 21, was convicted of rape of a child, indecent assault and battery, and open and gross lewdness for sexually assaulting an 11-year-old boy in a secluded area of the Charlestown Boys and Girls Club.” Within days, on June 21, the Globe retracted the story and said nothing happened at the Charlestown Boys and Girls Club, just everywhere else in Charlestown. That same year, 2003, former Charlestown clubhouse director Jerry Steimel admitted to documentary filmmaker Rudi Schwab (Closed on Sundays), that he “saw fear in the eyes of children” who were summoned to the gym for exercise. Indeed, forty years earlier, in 1963, when I, too, was a mere eleven-year-old kid, I was sadistically and brutally raped by two men in exactly the same room, except that the Power twins from Charlestown were never punished, until now. And they’re taking everyone down with them. Everyone.

Suffolk County District Attorney Opens Investigation into 1963 Rape at Charlestown Boys Club

In January of 2020, Suffolk County District Attorney Rachael Rollins opened an investigation into allegations that former Charlestown residents James Power and his brother Michael Power kidnapped about a dozen pre-teen boys who were attending the Stay-At-Home day camp at the Charlestown Boys Club in 1963, sometime between the last week of June and the first week of July, and proceeded to rape, mutilate and torture them inside the equipment room in the gym (pictured above). Years later, some victims spoke of years of recovery for physical injuries, and others spoke of decades — for injuries to their minds, injuries that were sadistic and vicious, planned and calculated.

James Power was never punished, but he was immediately sent away to Florida that year in 1963, no doubt under counsel, given the protection afforded him by the Florida Homestead Act. Smart move. Very good counsel.

His fraternal twin brother, Michael, however, was feted by the civic leaders that ran the Boys Club back then, beginning with Helen Bowdoin Spaulding, who was chairperson of the Club’s board of directors in 1963. Sometime during the early sixties, he was even photographed alongside the Governor, Endicott Peabody, which is difficult to understand until you consider the inevitable hypocrisy that the old Brahmin culture incorporated back then, and still do, to a large extent, with the exception of Ed Ansin and Gerald Blakely, who were both very decent men. Ed Ansin appears to have resigned from the board in 2001, after which neither he nor his brother’s names appear in the donators list. And they were multi-million-dollar donators. During his time on the board, the old Jordan Gym was re-named in honor of Mr. Ansin and his generous philanthropy to the Charlestown Boys & Girls Club.

“I was one of the boys at the Stay-At-Home day camp at the Charlestown Boys Club in the summer of 1963.
“I was both orally and anally raped and beaten by the two “gentlemen” in question. Both at the Boys Club, and off-site.”

Edmond Moussally Was Assistant to the Camp Director in 1963

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In December of 1999, Mr. Moussally, who now teaches music at Bunker Hill Community College in Charlestown, corroborated the allegations in an interview with Boston Globe reporter Jamal Watson. Mr. Moussally also identified one of the perpetrators as someone named “James.” Though it was on the tip of his tongue when asked, he would not say the last name of “James” because he intended to use that information as leverage for something that he wanted but regrettably never specified, or sought from someone other than me. But it was my impression of Edmund Moussally that he wanted something in return for the information, maybe nothing more than praise from the highest-ranking members of Boston society, maybe. Unfortunately, Mr. Moussally was neither compassionate or truthful. And when the Boston Police questioned him in 2020, he lied to investigators, in order to thwart a police investigation. He told investigators he knew nothing about it and had never said otherwise. Those were flagrant lies that will stay with Mr. Moussally’s legacy, unfortunately.

Edward A. Darragh, Jr. Was a Serial Child Rapist Who Worked at the Charlestown Boys Club between 1952 and 1963

Mr. Darragh worked at the Charlestown Boys Club as far back as 1952. He was Director of the Midget Division where he supervised the youngest and smallest children. Beginning in 1966, he was charged with 32 sexual crimes against children, including rape of a child. All but one was under 14. In 1984, he was sentenced to MCI Gardner for life. The accompanying picture shows an elderly Ed Darragh shortly around the time of his release, when he was allowed to go home and die as a free man.

Under Ed Darragh, Pedophilia Became Rampant at the Charlestown Boys Club

The Bunker Hill “Indians” were a part of Ed Darragh’s Midget Division. And their pictures were published by the Charlestown Boys Club in the community newspaper, the Charlestown Patriot, which the Club owned for a long time.

Boys who participated in Ed Darragh’s swimming program were required to swim in the nude. Bathing suits were not an option, unless you worked there, and there were many working teenagers.

“I remember a lot of queer type counselers [sic] up the club hanging around the pool, where we all swam naked, remember there were no girls allowed back then.”
– Name redacted

“One of the things that I remember, that I thought was a little askew, was a, there was this guy that ran the pool, who seemed to get a lot of pleasure with manipulating the young boys. … Physically. Touching them with what I thought was inappropriate. … Oh, yeah, he was the guy in charge of the pool. And he was a staple, ah, very, ah, well-known person in the community.”
-Edmond Moussally, Professor (Roxbury Community College)

Ed insisted that I take a tour of the Club (guided by him,) even though as a long-time alumnus I knew the club like the back of my hand. After proudly showing me the gym, he showed me the room where kids were given their annual physical checkups — a place I was already familiar with. He insisted on “demonstrating” by having a kid strip as if for a physical.

Darragh told me of a sort of inner circle he had within the club, and invited me to watch the “initiation” ceremony for that inner circle. He ushered the initiate into the storage room at the left of the stage. There he blindfolded the boy, had him drop his pants, and after a little ceremonial mumbo-jumbo, goosed the kid with a piece of cold metal. That was the “initiation.” I didn’t feel very good about Ed after that….
-Name redacted