' A Real Charmer '

JIM BITEMAN recalls that he was an eighth-grader at St. Paul's parish school in South Seattle when Father Patrick O'Donnell pulled him out of class and brought him down to the church's basement cafeteria to ask a few questions. According to Biteman, the young priest said he was conducting research for his psychology studies at the University of Washington—research that would be ruined if Biteman disclosed the conversation to classmates, who also were to be questioned.

Biteman says he faced a bank of windows while the priest sat behind him and proceeded to ask questions. O'Donnell asked him to picture himself naked in a mirror, then touching himself, then touching another boy in class. "This would go on for about 15 minutes," Biteman says. In one of the two or three such sessions he had with O'Donnell, Biteman says, he happened to look back and see that the priest's legs were apart, his hand between them.

What the priest was doing seems obvious now to Biteman, but at the time, he says, he was an innocent who went to Mass every Sunday, who had attended Catholic school since the first grade. Today, Biteman, 39, a Boeing facilities manager and the parent of a son, is among 10 plaintiffs suing O'Donnell for alleged sexual abuse years ago.

Back then, who would have guessed that a man with authoritative credentials—not only was O'Donnell a priest, but one pursuing a doctorate at the state's top university—would invoke "research" for the purpose of exploiting young boys? Surely not the parents who signed their children up for another research project of O'Donnell's that was the basis of his dissertation. The topic: encouraging trust between children and adults.

The 1978 dissertation can still be found on the shelves of UW's Allen library, outlining how O'Donnell used the classic "Prisoner's Dilemma Game," in which supposed partners in crime each decide whether to cooperate with police and rat out the other, as a way of measuring trust. Now that O'Donnell's history is the subject of the lawsuit and a church scandal in his hometown of Spokane, as well as an investigation by the state Board of Psychological Examiners, it is eerie to look at a consent form appended to the dissertation asking for the participation of students and parents on a Thursday, May 18, at St. Paul's.

O'Donnell did become a psychologist, and since the mid-1980s, he has been practicing in Bellevue—a fact that raises doubt about the psychological profession's ability to monitor itself as well as highlighting again the Catholic Church's now-well-known lapses in dealing with priest misconduct. Despite the recent tidal wave of sex-abuse allegations nationwide, this case astonishes. Neither Richard Sipe, a former priest and prominent Catholic reformer who has consulted on more than 100 cases, nor St. Paul, Minn., attorney Jeff Anderson, who has handled about 700 lawsuits against Catholic clergy, knows of another allegedly predatory priest who went on to become a psychologist. "I was kind of shocked by this guy—that he would go from one position where he had the chance to abuse to another," says Sipe, a psychotherapist.

How could it happen? Did O'Donnell use his psychological training and practice to further an alleged pursuit of boys? As troubling as are Biteman's recollections and O'Donnell's thesis, so far there is no evidence that he ever abused a patient. Last month, however, as allegations about O'Donnell were coming to light in Spokane, the state Board of Psychological Examiners received a new complaint. The board won't release details because it is under investigation—not even whether the alleged infraction occurred while O'Donnell was acting as a priest or a psychologist. Charged with ensuring the moral and professional suitability of psychologists, the board is also investigating a host of allegations about O'Donnell's pre- practice background that were recently brought to light by a series of articles in the Spokane Spokesman-Review. The lawsuit, meanwhile, filed last month in Spokane County Superior Court, alleges O'Donnell was a "predatory pedophile."

OTHER THAN THE recent complaint to the state, the picture of O'Donnell's psychology practice at this point reveals nothing amiss, although the picture is far from complete. Through his Cascade Behavioral Medicine Clinic, he has treated dozens of people experiencing pain and emotional distress after car accidents, according to documents in the King County Recorder's Office that seem to have been filed in relation to insurance settlements or litigation. One of the people O'Donnell treated, an Edmonds woman, remembers him as "very professional" and "kindly," a therapist who empathized with her suffering by telling her about a car accident he had been through. He kept a fridge full of complimentary juice and water in his homey office.

In keeping with this area of practice, O'Donnell is listed as a member of an interdisciplinary organization called the American Academy of Pain Management. He has treated, too, clients who were injured on the job and who were receiving worker's compensation from the state Department of Labor and Industries. Over a period of 10 years, he billed the department for $380,000, some bills coming in as recently as May. He also has treated women who were sexually harassed, according to county documents, as well as a boy who fell from playground equipment at an elementary school.