"I need to tell people my story," he said. Today, Ogletree is 48. He can't forget about what happened when he was 10, not ever.
As a child, Leeronnie Ogletree would sneak away from his Winter Haven home to watch the Red Sox during spring training practice at the ballpark just down the street.
"Little did I know that one of the world's most notorious pedophiles is watching me too," Ogletree said.
Leeronnie Ogletree will be one of three survivors of childhood sexual abuse to speak with Lisa Ling for her show "Lisa Ling's Our America" - A Predator in the Clubhouse will air Tuesday, February 26, 2013 at 9:00 p.m. on the OWN Network.
*Triggering*
Preview: A Predator in the Clubhouse
When we send our children to school or after-school programs, we entrust their lives to supposedly trustworthy people. In this episode, Lisa Ling examines stories of stolen innocence, and the pattern of inaction that can create a lifetime of pain.
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Long before revelations that former Penn State football coach Jerry Sandusky had allegedly sexually abused a number of at-risk youth, another high-profile predator used the cover of athletics to molest young boys.
Between 1971 and 1991, Donald Fitzpatrick,a long-time Red Sox clubhouse manager, systematically molested and abused nearly a dozen African-American boys in their hometown of Winter Haven, Florida, where the baseball team held their Spring training.
In 2003 the Boston Red Sox settled a $3.15 million federal lawsuit brought against them by Ogletree and seven other men from Winter Haven who said Fitzpatrick repeatedly molested them as boys. The seven men who settled with the team and Fitzpatrick include Myron Birdsong, Terrance D. Birdsong, Walter Covington III, Eric Frazier Jr., Willie Earl Hollis, James A. Jackson and Ogletree.
"They sweep it under the rug and they look the other way"
Benjamin Crump, Ogletree's attorney, said there were cover-ups, denials and the enabling of pedophiles to use the power of their institutions to prey on the weak, in the Red Sox case, "poor black boys," he said. The kinds of youth often considered society's "throwaways." "Like most of these institutions, it's deny, deny, deny."
According to reports, former Red Sox players such as Jim Rice and Sammy Stewart got wind of Fitzpatrick's deeds and would warn kids in the clubhouse to avoid him. In 1971, one of Fitzpatrick's victims came forward to the team, and in a manner similar to Penn State's handling of the Sandusky allegations, the team did not alert authorities or fire Fitzpatrick
Never mind that the negligence dated back to 1971. One victim, according to a complaint filed by his lawyer two decades later, told Red Sox home clubhouse manager Vince Orlando that Fitzpatrick had abused him for the previous three seasons. Orlando fired the boy. Two sources, who asked not to be identified, said a Red Sox player caught Fitzpatrick sodomizing a boy in the shower, much like then-Penn State graduate assistant Mike McQueary did Sandusky. The player reported the incident to the team but not police. Fitzpatrick kept his job anyway.
...the players saw his predilection toward young, black boys as odd. Just not odd enough to look deeper.
In 1991, a victim of Fitzpatrick attended a baseball game and held up a sign that said:
Donald Fitzpatrick Sexually Assaulted Me
The Red Sox organization settled out of court for $100,000. That victim remains anonymous to this day.