http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/ ... 4678.storyCovenant House fires its Central American program director
By FREDDY CUEVAS
Associated Press Writer
September 17, 2004, 10:56 PM EDT
TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras -- The director of Casa Alianza, a Covenant House program that is Central America's most important children's rights organization, has been fired because of a relationship with a boy the organization had once helped.
Bruce Harris, the regional director of Casa Alianza, "recently paid for sexual favors from a 19-year-old Honduran youth" who had been a resident of the organization's shelter until near the end of 2002, according to a statement released Friday by Covenant House, Casa Alianza's parent organization.
The encounter took place in a hotel room in Tegucigalpa, the Honduran capital, the statement said. "Mr. Harris had admitted that he acted incorrectly," it continued.
Honduran prosecutors were investigating and Casa Alianza, based in the Costa Rican capital of San Jose, was cooperating, according to Covenant House.
Harris, 49, said in a letter released Thursday that he was leaving Casa Alianza to spend more time with his family. In an e-mail to The Associated Press late Friday, he declined to give details about the case, but said he was "at the disposition" of investigators.
"Sheltering behind a lie has never been my way, so I assume, as I always have done, responsibility for my acts, correct or incorrect," Harris wrote. "I do not want to have the boys and girls served by Casa Alianza pay for my private life."
In its statement, Covenant House said Pedro Fragoso, Casa Alianza's director of internal auditing, had been tapped to replace Harris temporarily.
Covenant House spokesman Richard Hirsch said the agency's board met late Thursday and decided to set up a committee to carry out an independent investigation of the charges against Harris.
"We're a child care agency, our primary concern has to be the good of the children," he said. "When there's any question about that, we really have to step back and look at" the situation.
"The program is not one individual, it's all these people who work to assist young people," Hirsch added.
The news was a blow to an organization which has crusaded for the rights of poor, abused and abandoned youth throughout Central America and which had demanded that police crack down on sexual tourism by foreigners who had preyed upon youths in the area.
Casa Alianza worked with governments throughout the region to rescue homeless youngsters who had been forced into prostitution rings or the illicit drug trade. It even helped authorities in some countries organize sting operations designed to catch police officers and other adults abusing street children.
The British-born Harris was well-known throughout Latin America as an outspoken defender of children's rights.
In January, a Guatemala court ruled prosecutors had failed to prove Harris intended to damage or defame the wife of a Supreme Court justice when he wrote about alleged influence-trafficking in adoption cases in 1997.
Covenant House says it is the largest privately funded child-care agency in the United States providing shelter and service to homeless and runaway youth.
In 1989, a former male prostitute said he had an affair with Covenant House's founder, the late Rev. Bruce Ritter. Several other young men at Covenant House also accused the Franciscan priest of seducing them.
Ritter denied the charges, but was ordered to take a leave of absence when questionable financial transactions surfaced. He later resigned.
The Covenant House board eventually found no serious financial impropriety, but extensive evidence of sexual misconduct. Ritter, who died in 1999, was never charged with any criminal wrongdoing.
Copyright © 2004, The Associated Press
