For survivors, Rhode Island clergy abuse report brings vindication and renewed demands

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — The sound of the school nurse’s office door opening. Light reflecting off a stained-glass window. Tearful outbursts and fear of getting on the school bus.

For many survivors of clergy abuse, memories like these linger for decades.

A report released this week by the Rhode Island attorney general detailed decades of abuse inside the state’s Catholic Diocese of Providence, identifying 75 clergy members who sexually abused more than 300 children since 1950. The investigation drew on thousands of church records and years of interviews with victims and witnesses. Officials said the true number of victims is likely much higher.

But survivors say the numbers capture only part of the story. Behind each case, they say, are childhood fragments that resurface years later — along with the long struggle to understand what happened.

Many survivors spent decades searching for answers and pressing authorities to investigate. Now some are speaking publicly about what they endured and what they hope will come next: broader support for survivors, help from the church to pay for therapy and counseling, and accountability from Catholic leaders.

“I can still hear the click of the hardware in that metal door opening to this very day,” said Dr. Herbert “Hub” Brennan, an internal medicine doctor who lives and works in his hometown of East Greenwich, Rhode Island, where he grew up in a devoutly Catholic family.

Brennan was sexually abused in elementary school by the Rev. Brendan Smyth, an Irish priest who arrived in the community in the 1960s. Brennan was an altar server at Our Lady of Mercy Parish when the abuse began in the church sacristy.

Brennan says a nun would pull him from class and send him to wait in the principal's office until Smyth arrived and led him into the nurse’s room.

“They say that rape is one of the few crimes where the victim feels the shame,” Brennan said. “But the shame is enormous. And then the secrecy that follows to hide that shame gets in the way of healing.”

Brennan confronted it years later when a newspaper arrived on his doorstep in 1995. The headline about Smyth’s arrest in Ireland read: “Diocese has no complaints against jailed priest.”

Smyth was later convicted of assaulting children at least 100 times over four decades.

When Brennan later tried to discuss the abuse with a parish priest, he said he was assured there had been no complaints, only to learn later the priest had been Smyth’s roommate.

The revelation pushed Brennan to seek accountability. He later worked with attorney Mitchell Garabedian and settled in Massachusetts Superior Court.

“I needed to make sure that others knew exactly what was going on in this diocese — if it happened to others, who was responsible and how they were hiding it,” Brennan said.

The report released this week felt like a culmination of that effort, he said: “That allowed me to switch from survivor-victim to advocate.”

For Claude Leboeuf, amber light streaming through stained-glass windows still triggers painful memories.

Leboeuf, who was abused by a priest as a child in neighboring Massachusetts and now advocates for victims in Rhode Island, called the report an important step toward dismantling what he calls the church’s “wall of secrecy.”

The retired U.S. postal worker said his memories resurfaced only a few years ago, prompting him to pursue legal action and speak publicly about what happened to him.

“There’s a need to do something for these people — something real: money, tuition, therapy,” Leboeuf said. “The effects are real; they last a long, long time.”

In a video statement, Bishop of Providence Bruce Lewandowski said the report describes a “tragic history” of abuse that caused lasting harm to victims and their families. He said he felt “extreme sadness” and “intense shame” while reading it and apologized to survivors for church leaders' past failures to protect children. Lewandowski said the diocese has since implemented safeguards aimed at responding quickly to allegations and preventing abuse.

Leboeuf rejects any framing that abuse by clergy is “old history.”

“It’s justice denied for more than 60 years for some people,” he said. “These are people who brought their complaints to the diocese as kids in the 1960s, and they were ignored, ridiculed, even punished.”

Ann Hagan Webb remembers the dread she felt before the school bus arrived each morning. Webb was only a kindergartner when her parish priest began sexually abusing her at school in Rhode Island.

The abuse took place between 1957 and 1965, during which Webb — who was abused from the age of 5 to 12 — remembers tearful outbursts before school, sometimes needing to be pulled onto the bus.

It wasn't until decades later, at 40, that Webb — a trained psychologist — turned to therapy herself to help process the memories. But when she was ready to report the abuse, Webb was met with hostility.

Initially, she asked only for compensation to cover her therapy bills. Still, she was met with skepticism, with leaders at the Diocese of Providence demanding her medical records and questioning the veracity of her claims.

Webb turned to advocacy, becoming known as a force for survivors of clergy abuse. In 2019, she helped convince the Rhode Island Legislature to enact legislation dubbed “Annie’s Law,” which allows child sexual abusers to be held civilly accountable to victims.

The advocacy has been exhausting, Webb said, and she still faces stigma when speaking publicly. Her abuse is often overlooked, she says, because many assume clergy abuse affected only boys.

“For 32 years, the diocese has called me not credible. I can’t tell you what that feels like,” Webb said.

The release of the attorney general’s investigation has renewed her hope that change and justice are still on the horizon.

“It feels like vindication,” she said.

“I hope the public demands their church be different,” she added.

The Rhode Island investigation comes at a time when examining possible clergy abuse is no longer unusual.

The shift is a far cry from 2002, when The Boston Globe exposed the Boston Archdiocese’s practice of moving abusive priests between parishes without warning parents or police, prompting investigations around the world.

That reckoning took decades longer in Rhode Island. With one of the highest Catholic populations per capita in the country — nearly 40% — the Diocese of Providence maintained secrecy around clergy abuse even as accusations and lawsuits surfaced over the years.

Attorney Tim Conlon, who has long represented sex abuse victims in Rhode Island, said that when he first filed suits against the Diocese of Providence, many people were unwilling to believe such allegations could be true in their own parishes. At one point in the late 1990s, he said, even his mother questioned whether he was doing the right thing.

State law has also made it difficult for victims to seek justice, Conlon said, citing strict limits on civil suits against institutions like the Catholic Church and narrow statutes of limitations for second-degree sexual assault.

“Clearly there’s a call for reform,” Conlon said. “The magnitude of the need is well documented.”

Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul, which serves as the home church of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence, is seen Tuesday, Feb. 24, 2026, in Providence, R.I. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

A Roman Catholic priest says a prayer during an afternoon Mass at the Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul, which serves as the home church of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence, on Thursday, March 5, 2026, in Providence, R.I. (AP Photo/Rodrique Ngowi)

A Roman Catholic priest says a prayer during an afternoon Mass at the Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul, which serves as the home church of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence, on Thursday, March 5, 2026, in Providence, R.I. (AP Photo/Rodrique Ngowi)

A statue of the Virgin Mary and baby Jesus is displayed outside St. Mary's Church, Tuesday, Feb. 24, 2026, in Cranston, R.I. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul, which serves as the home church of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence, is seen Tuesday Feb. 24, 2026, in Providence, R.I. (AP Photo/Charles Krupa)

Claude Leboeuf, a clergy abuse survivor and advocate, poses at his home in Providence, R.I., Thursday, March 5, 2026, after a report by the Rhode Island attorney general detailed decades of abuse within the Catholic Diocese of Providence. (AP Photo/Leah Willingham)

Church abuse survivor Ann Hagan Webb speaks during an interview at the Rhode Island Attorney General's Office in Providence, R.I., on Wednesday, March 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Leah Willingham)

Dr. Herbert "Hub" Brennan, a clergy abuse survivor, shows at a 1995 newspaper article about the arrest of the Rev. Brendan Smyth while at his internal medicine office in East Greenwich, R.I., Thursday, March 5, 2026. (AP Photo/Leah Willingham)

Dr. Herbert "Hub" Brennan, a clergy abuse survivor, displays a 1995 newspaper showing a headline that reads "Diocese has no complaints about jailed priest" at his internal medicine office in East Greenwich, R.I., Thursday, March 5, 2026. (AP Photo/Leah Willingham)

Claude Leboeuf, a clergy abuse survivor and advocate, sits for a portrait at his home in Providence, R.I., Thursday, March 5, 2026, after a report by the Rhode Island attorney general detailed decades of abuse within the Catholic Diocese of Providence. (AP Photo/Leah Willingham)

ANN ARBOR, Mich. (AP) — Former Michigan football coach Sherrone Moore pleaded no contest to two misdemeanors on Friday in a deal to resolve a felony criminal case that arose immediately after he was fired for having an inappropriate relationship with his executive assistant.

The deal was struck on the same day a judge planned to hear a challenge to Moore’s arrest in December on three charges, including felony home invasion. Those previous charges were dropped in exchange for Moore pleading no contest to misdemeanor trespassing and misdemeanor malicious use of a telecom device.

“Things have changed,” Judge J. Cedric Simpson said.

Moore had confronted the woman with whom he had been having an affair and blamed her for his dismissal, even threatening to kill himself with butter knives in her apartment, authorities said.

“All the charges against Mr. Moore were not supported by facts and law,” said attorney Ellen Michaels, standing alongside Moore and his wife, outside the courtroom. “The dismissal of those charges validates the concerns we raised about the investigation from the very beginning. Mr. Moore is pleased to put this behind him and move forward."

Moore arrived at the courthouse with his wife, Kelli, and they walked toward the courtroom holding hands, interlacing fingers.

Hours later, they left together and Moore declined an opportunity to share anything he had to say.

“No, I’m good," he said. "Appreciate it.”

Assistant prosecutor Kati Rezmierski, on her way out of the courthouse earlier in the afternoon, declined an interview request..

Sentencing is scheduled for April 14 on charges that have a potential maximum of six months and 30 days in prison.

Michaels said the tether, a GPS tracking device that has been on Moore since December, was to be removed on Friday and she does not expect him to serve any more time after spending two nights in jail following his arrest.

“This is not the kind of case that somebody is punished by jail,” she said.

Michaels said she advised Moore to plead to no contest due to potential civil litigation and to help him move on with his family and avoid a trial.

“He has had the opportunity to be with his daughters, to be with his wife, to be home for the holidays, to take his kids to swim lessons,” she said. " As somebody who’s come up the coaching tree and became a head coach at a young age, that is something that he has missed out on.

“I can tell you that losing his job and and being at home, he has embraced it as an opportunity to reconnect to his family, to spend time with his kids and to become the man he wants to be.”

Moore, 40, was fired on Dec. 10 after two seasons as the successor to Jim Harbaugh, who won a national championship before leaving to lead the NFL’s Los Angeles Chargers.

In dismissing Moore, the university cited an inappropriate relationship with a staff member. Rezmierski has said the woman ended the affair a few days before Moore’s firing and cooperated with the school’s investigation.

University of Michigan spokesman Paul Corliss said the school did not have a comment on Friday's developments.

The AP isn’t identifying the woman, who has accused Moore of domestic violence and stalking. She did not answer a dozen calls or respond to some text messages from him before his dismissal, police said.

“It’s not stalking if the communication has a legitimate purpose,” Michaels has said.

A message seeking comment was left with attorney Heidi Sharp, who is representing Moore’s former executive assistant.

Michaels has accused the woman’s personal lawyer of giving information to police to “villainize Mr. Moore and maximize the chances of obtaining a large settlement from the deep pockets of the University of Michigan.”

Michaels declined to say if she was involved in potential litigation against the university on Moore's behalf. He signed a five-year contract with a base annual salary of $5.5 million last year. According to the terms of his deal, the university did not have to buy out the remaining years of his contract because he was fired for cause.

Associated Press writer Ed White in Detroit contributed to this report.

This story has been updated to correct the spelling of the assistant prosecutor's name to Kati Rezmierski instead of Katie Rezmierski.

Sherrone Moore appears with his attorney, Ellen Michaels arrive for a hearing, Friday, March 6 2026, at Washtenaw County 14A-1 District in Ann Arbor, Mich. (Jordyn Pair/Ann Arbor News via AP)

Washtenaw County assistant prosecutor Kati Rezmierski takes her seat as Sherrone Moore appears for a hearing, Friday, March 6 2026, at Washtenaw County 14A-1 District in Ann Arbor, Mich. (Jordyn Pair/Ann Arbor News via AP)

Sherrone Moore appears with his attorney, Ellen Michaels, right for a hearing, Friday, March 6 2026, at Washtenaw County 14A-1 District in Ann Arbor, Mich. (Jordyn Pair/Ann Arbor News via AP)

Former Michigan football coach Sherrone Moore arrives for a court hearing with his wife, Kelli Moore, left, and attorney Ellen Michaels, Friday, March 6 2026, at Washtenaw County 14A-1 District in Ann Arbor, Mich. (Jordyn Pair/Ann Arbor News via AP)