SCHOOL BIG HUNTED IN NEW PERV CASE

A TOP ADMINISTRATOR at a Manhattan private school has been accused of molesting a student - a decade after he was defrocked as a priest for allegedly propositioning a 13-year-old boy, the Daily News has learned.

The NYPD has launched a hunt for Bruce Jacques, 57, who vanished after he was accused of sexually assaulting a student at the Robert Louis Stevenson School, a small academy for kids with emotional and learning problems.

"This kind of event is just shocking," headmaster Bud Henrichsen told The News yesterday. "You don't feel it's going to happen in your place."

The school, which occupies a landmark building on W. 74th St. near Central Park West, hired Jacques as development director two years ago.

Officials said he had sterling references and they had no clue he'd been tossed out of the Episcopalian priesthood after a 1995 sexual abuse scandal.

Their first inkling of his troubled past came Oct. 20, when a distraught Stevenson student told a teacher that Jacques had molested him in Central Park that morning, sources said.

Jacques was summoned to the headmaster's office, where he admitted to a "sexual encounter" with the underage boy, Henrichsen said.

The boy's mother also was brought to the school but chose not to call police on the spot because she feared the commotion would brand her son. Jacques was allowed to leave the building, and by the time Henrichsen contacted police the alleged pervert was in the wind.

Detectives quickly discovered that Jacques, a divorced father of two, had been accused of preying on children in the past.

In 1995, when he was the rector of St. John's Episcopal Church in New Milford, Conn., a 13-year-old parishioner lodged a sickening charge: that Jacques offered to perform oral sex as a "gift" for his Confirmation.

The uproar led Jacques to resign, yet he sued the boy's family for defamation. They countersued, and the matter was settled out of court.

Three years later, the Episcopal Diocese of Connecticut stripped Jacques of his collar after a church court found him guilty of "conduct unbecoming a member of the clergy."

He went on to a series of fund-raising jobs and applied for the Stevenson post two years ago, lying from the start. "He told us he was a priest but that he preferred to do development work and that he frequently took the place of active Episcopalian clergy," Henrichsen said.

The headmaster said a consultant hired to screen job candidates and Jacques' references never mentioned his sordid past.

"I don't know what we could have done differently, but we feel incredibly betrayed by him and really troubled about the student [who was allegedly molested]," Henrichsen said.

Administrators called parents of the school's roughly 70 students this week and told them what happened. The students were informed Thursday. No one at Stevenson wanted to discuss the incident yesterday. "We're just hearing about it," a teacher said before hurrying off. "It's a horrible thing."

This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

[Illustration] Caption: Bruce Jacques

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction or distribution is prohibited without permission.

10/29/2005
by: TRACY CONNOR DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER With Kerry Burke and Jonathan Lemire
Copyright Daily News, L.P. Oct 29, 2005