1984 Jury Initially Awards $500,000 in Jerry Sidell Case
Original publication: November 30, 1984. Original headline: “Molester ordered to pay victim.” Byline: Bert Roughton Jr.
Content note: This archival report discusses child sexual abuse and its effects.
Later procedural update: A January 10, 1985 report says the $500,000 civil jury award was set aside on procedural grounds and a new trial was granted. The November 1984 award should not be described as a final, enforceable judgment.
Historical document: terminology and safety guidance reflect the newspaper’s reporting at the time and may not reflect current best practices. Line-end hyphenation has been normalized for readability.
From the archive
Original newspaper headline: Molester ordered to pay victim
Family believes they made a point in suit
Larry and Betty Martin don’t think their 13-year-old son will ever see the $500,000 a jury decided a former youth minister should pay him for molesting the boy in 1982.
But they believe they made their point.
“We didn’t do this for the money,” Mrs. Martin said after the Clayton County jury’s decision Thursday. “We wanted to make a statement for all the kids in this state whom somebody has molested that somebody cares about them.”
Their son was 11 when Jerry Sidell, former youth minister at First Christian Church of Jonesboro, molested him during a church trip to the Woodland Christian Camp in Temple, Ga.
Sidell, 28, absent from the civil trial that began Tuesday, is serving three concurrent 10-year sentences for molesting boys in Clayton, DeKalb and Carroll counties. Sidell also molested the Martins’ older son, and a separate lawsuit on his behalf against Sidell has not yet come to trial.
The victim was technically the plaintiff in the case decided Thursday, because the suit was filed on his behalf by his father. Although it is becoming more common for victims to seek damages against people who have committed crimes against them, one of the family’s lawyers said he knew of no other case in which a molested child has sued his molester.
“It’s a remedy that is not used enough,” said the attorney, Mike Martin, no relation to the Martins. “The state’s going to get its pound of flesh when a criminal goes to prison. This gives the victim something, too. It’s one thing to see a person who has committed a crime against you go to jail; it’s another to hit him in the pocketbook.”
But Sidell’s lawyer, Bill Latson, who does not plan to appeal, said the trial was nothing more than an attempt by the family to gain publicity. “The decision wasn’t worth 50 cents,” he said. “They knew good and well that they wouldn’t get a penny.
“This was only something symbolic, something for the papers to make a big deal out of,” he said. “I doubt they’ll collect any, or even a small portion, of the money.”
But attorney Martin said the judgment will hang over Sidell the rest of his life.
“When he gets out of prison in two or three years, he’ll be facing a half a million dollar debt right up front,” he said. “If he gets a job, we’ll start garnisheeing his wages. If he inherits a million dollars, we’ll take half of it. The Martins are the kind of people who will pursue him wherever he goes.”
An investigation of Sidell’s assets has not yet been conducted, the lawyer said. Larry Martin, the boy’s father, agreed that the money was not the goal of the lawsuit, but added, “This is more than symbolic. The jury has said that the victim has a right to be compensated for the crimes committed against him.
“Our son feels like he has gotten something out of this, and we are happy with the decision,” he said.
In his closing arguments Wednesday, Charles Driebe Jr., the other attorney who represented the family, asked the jury to tell Sidell “that he has ruined this boy’s life. And send the community a message that Mr. Sidell has done something wrong, and we won’t put up with it.”
The jury of eight men and four women deliberated 45 minutes late Wednesday and early Thursday before returning the judgment against Sidell.
The boy, testifying Wednesday, gave an emotional account of the incidents at the camp in 1982.
The youth said he kept quiet about the incidents for a year. “He told me not to tell anybody what had happened,” he said. “He said he would lose his job and his wife would divorce him.”
In May 1983, he and his older brother told their father what had been going on, and Sidell was arrested.
The Martins filed two suits against Sidell, seeking $1 million in damages for each of their two sons molested by the youth minister.
Source attribution: The Atlanta Constitution, November 30, 1984. Article by Bert Roughton Jr. Transcribed from historical microfilm scans supplied for research. Original headline and byline retained. Newspaper text and imagery belong to their respective rights holders.
