Listening for the Truth

Letter from the Editor

By Edward Miller
Oct 14, 2026

More than 30 years ago. That’s when the alleged sexual assaults by Dr. William Velie, described last week in an article about five women who lived at the Community of Jesus in Rock Harbor, would have taken place. Velie, who was the community’s primary care doctor for more than 35 years, died in 2021.

It was not easy for us to decide to publish these women’s stories in detail so many years later. They were harrowing to report, for one thing. And to read. What could be done now? The man they accuse of the abuse was never charged with a crime during his life, and he died five years ago.

Jeffrey Robbins, the Boston lawyer who has represented the Community of Jesus for many years, told us that this story was a “blend of character assassination and guilt by association.”

“Have you no sense of decency?” Robbins asked us, quoting the famous rebuke of Joseph Welch to Sen. Joseph McCarthy.

It is true that Dr. Velie cannot defend himself now, but the fact that he is dead should not mean we cannot hear these women’s testimony. Velie himself can no longer be charged, but others who know what happened in his office could be. We want to know how his colleagues at Rock Harbor Health see the allegations and recall his character. But despite repeated efforts, they would not talk to our reporter, Jack Styler.

The fact that attorney Robbins describes the result of our investigation as “guilt by association” is revealing, because in distancing the Community of Jesus from the alleged crimes, he seems to accept that Dr. Velie was indeed guilty.

In 2007, when Dr. Velie was still seeing patients, says Bonnie Zampino, she tried to file a complaint against him with the Orleans police for what happened when she was 13. She was 37 then. The police told her that the statute of limitations precluded any action.

While there are many answers we do not have, we know that victims of child sexual abuse often won’t speak about it for fear of not being believed, coupled with deep shame. “I took that whole experience,” says Christina Swidrak, who described abuse by Velie, “and shoved it down so far so that I could never feel that way again.”

When Zampino called the Orleans police in 2007, state law required child abuse victims to file charges by age 21. That law was changed in 2014 to extend the age limit to 53 (age 18 plus 35 years). Now, in the wake of a scathing report from the attorney general on child sexual abuse by priests, there is a call to eliminate the statute of limitations for civil lawsuits entirely. A new MassINC poll found that 84 percent of voters support that idea.

Reporting these women’s stories may seem indecent to the lawyer for the Community of Jesus. But listening for the truth about Rock Harbor’s children is essential to the whole community’s sense of decency.