The rest from Pioneer PressPaul Eck said he thought his priest, the Rev. Tom Ericksen, was doing him a favor in 1983 when Eck was 17 and coming back from a high school homecoming party.
About a year earlier, Ericksen had taken over as minister for St. Peter's Catholic Church in Winter, Wis., about 100 miles southeast of Superior and a part of the Superior diocese. The priest and Eck had developed a friendship, Eck said, and Ericksen often let the high-schooler borrow his car.
Eck was drunk when he brought the car back that night, he said, and Ericksen told him that rather than go home and face his parents, he could sleep it off in his spare bedroom.
That night, Eck said, Ericksen raped him.
A month later, Eck said, Ericksen was caught assaulting two boys in a rectory. One of the boys, James Eck, was Paul's nephew.
Court records provided by Paul Eck show that Ericksen and the Superior diocese settled a lawsuit with Paul and James Eck for nearly $3 million in 1989. The year before, Ericksen was officially removed from the priesthood, according to the Superior diocese.
But Ericksen was never criminally charged with molestation, nor was he ever identified as a sex offender.
The Ecks want that to change. They are coming forward to talk about the alleged assault and demand that Wisconsin authorities extradite Ericksen back to the state to face criminal charges.
"This is not about money," said Paul Eck, who is now a truck driver still living in Winter. "I want to see him in court answering to this, and I want to see him behind bars."
It's unclear whether Wisconsin has the right to prosecute Ericksen. While the statute of limitations has expired for sexual assault, there is an exception if the alleged perpetrator moved out of the state.
Ericksen writes that he moved to Minneapolis and worked at AT&T as a customer service specialist for 20 years before relocating to Kansas City, where he lists himself as working for the Census.
Ericksen's resumes indicate that he has been a member of AT&T's gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender employee association; that he was a hospital chaplain at Holy Cross Hospital in Merrill, Wis.; a former board member for a group called "Lutherans Concerned"; a member of the Games Management Team at the Special Olympics; and a secretary/board member for the Sons of Norway.
Though the Superior diocese was listed as a defendant in the lawsuits the Ecks filed and settled in 1989, the bishop of the diocese at the time, Raphael Fliss, said he remembers only Ericksen's name and nothing about the settlement.
"I didn't have much dealing with him," Fliss said. "That was so long ago." [.....okay]
He declined further comment.
I completely agree that this guy should have been behind bars. It's becoming more evident that there were some severe problems in the Diocese of Superior during this time. And... I think the question of the involvement of the bishop is not yet closed. Fliss only began serving in 1985. Prior to that Bishop George Hammes served from 1960-85(and was originally from La Crosse). I have Good Bye Good Men sitting on my nightstand but haven't had a chance to start it yet.
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