Why Should Delaware Care?
The Earl Bradley sex abuse case stands as perhaps the worst criminal stain on Delaware in recent decades, including hundreds of very young victims. An unprecedented legal settlement aimed to support those survivors, but now questions have been raised over the effectiveness of those efforts.
Content Warning: This story contains details of sexual abuse, including crimes involving children. If you or someone you know may be a victim of sexual abuse, confidential support, information and advice are available at the National Sexual Assault Hotline by calling 800-656-4673. Text chat is also available online. Bradley victims seeking to connect with each other are encouraged to email LewesDEHeals@gmail.com.
Bailey Tenerovich was 21 when she was sexually assaulted by a college acquaintance who walked her home from a party.
“Literally, as it was happening to me, I was reliving myself being a little girl in Dr. Bradley’s office. That’s where my mind pushed me, because that’s what it had to grasp on to,” she said.
Tenerovich’s mind went to that place because she is one of hundreds of estimated victims of Earl Bradley, a pedophile pediatrician whose videotaped abuse of infants and children in his Lewes-area practice shocked Delaware and the nation when his crimes were uncovered in 2009.
Today, Bradley continues to serve 14 life sentences in a Connecticut prison after being found guilty of raping children as young as just a few months old.
But survivors of his abuse, many of whom, like Tenerovich, were elementary-age children or younger at the time of the crimes, are just now grappling with the trauma – and some are finding that the financial settlement reached in its wake won’t help them.
Spotlight Delaware reviewed hundreds of pages of court filings and interviewed nearly a dozen people connected to the Bradley case over the past 18 months. Despite the decade-plus that has passed, only a handful of the victims have ever become publicly known because the case remains sealed.
Tenerovich agreed to be identified in order to shed light on the struggles she, her sister and others have faced in trying to receive appropriate care to deal with their newly resurfaced trauma. Others reached by Spotlight Delaware were not prepared to discuss their experiences publicly.
Record settlement provided millions
In the months after Bradley’s arrest, it became clear that a system of checks and balances had failed to prevent the abuse over the doctor’s 15-year tenure in Delaware.
The state medical board dismissed a complaint lodged by a mother against Bradley in Philadelphia before he came to Delaware’s beach communities in 1994, and the Delaware Medical Society ignored pleas from Bradley’s sister who sought their professional help in the years before his arrest.
Beebe Healthcare, where Bradley had been on staff as a pediatrician, had dismissed a nurse’s complaint that Bradley had been overly affectionate with children and frequently conducted unnecessary catheterizations – or the insertion of a small tube into the urethra to obtain a urine sample.
Those failures resulted in Beebe and the Medical Society, along with a handful of individual leaders, being sued by victims’ families in what became a then-record-setting $123 million class action settlement for a sexual abuse case by a single perpetrator.
Before Bradley, large-scale sex abuse cases were largely relegated to scandals within the Catholic Church, but the case helped to introduce a new degree of financial liability for the crimes of a physician.
In the ensuing decade, further class action settlements have been reached in cases involving Johns Hopkins obstetrician Nikita Levy, University of Michigan gymnastics physician Larry Nassar and New York Presbyterian gynecologist Robert Hadden, among others, with sums now routinely topping hundreds of millions of dollars, and even $1 billion in some cases.
Even so, a lawyer representing Beebe’s insurers noted the unprecedented nature of the Bradley case for its time.
“Even the so-called ‘Church’ cases did not provide clear guidance for damages assessments involving pre-verbal victims exhibiting an extreme range of residual harm,” wrote attorney James Murray, who worked on several diocesan abuse cases, in an affidavit.
Families confronted with a decision
Of the $123 million paid to victims of Bradley, the plaintiffs’ lawyers received about $32 million.
The bulk of the funding was used to create a Qualified Settlement Fund, which allowed survivors to register as a member of the settlement class and be awarded cash to be paid out after they turned 18 years old. The payments ranged depending on the severity of the known abuses for a victim, with some receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Because of the very young age of some of Bradley’s victims, however, it was largely up to their parents to register to receive the payouts.
A steering committee made up of multiple different plaintiff law firms undertook a mailing notice and advertising campaign that reached out to the families of more than 7,000 children in southern Delaware who were recorded as having been treated by Bradley, recalled Phil Federico, one of the lead attorneys who worked on the case.
In the end, at least 980 families participated in the settlement, according to court records and News Journal reports.
For Federico, whose firm Brockstedt Mandalas Federico specializes in class action lawsuits and helped litigate the Nikita Levy and Catholic Diocese cases in Maryland, the reality that many families chose to not engage with the settlement was not surprising.
“I think some really just wanted to protect their children, and the thought process was, ‘Maybe it’s just best if we pretend like it never happened,’” he told Spotlight Delaware. “And that’s not unusual in the world of sexual abuse cases. Others elected to not tell their children, but to participate in the settlement. Maybe they would tell their children when they got older or maybe not, depending on the circumstances.”
Tenerovich’s mother, Margaret Murphy, was among those who did not participate in the settlement. She had been notified that her daughters were listed among the potential victims.
But overwhelmed with a sense of guilt and shame, she retreated into depression – in part because Murphy, who prided herself on bedside compassion as an office assistant, had worked for Bradley for nearly two years in the early 2000s. She said she never noticed that anything was amiss, nor did anyone tell her of concerns.
Hiding his abuse, like he did for most in the beachside community, Bradley was a family friend. When Tenerovich was sick one year, other physicians downplayed her symptoms. Bradley ordered an ultrasound that discovered she had appendicitis – a potentially life-threatening diagnosis if untreated.
He bought Murphy’s middle daughter, Aja Tenerovich, a flute so she could participate in the school band when the family didn’t have money for the instrument.
“I didn’t believe [Bradley was guilty of his crimes] for the first 24 hours,” Murphy recalled. “There was just no way. Then, within 24 hours, the police released that they had photos and videos. So I had to believe it.”
Worried about her mother’s and older sister’s ability to weather a potentially difficult recounting of the abuse, Aja Tenerovich – then just a sixth grader – remembers advising her family that it was not worth it to pursue the settlement.
“I feel differently now because I recognize that the avoidance of addressing it only prolongs the whole arc of healing from it,” she said. “It has haunted us our entire lives, because we never confronted it.”
LEARN MORE IN THIS PODCAST WITH EDITOR-IN-CHIEF JACOB OWENS
A fund creates an opportunity
Even though Murphy and her daughters did not pursue the settlement, the lawyers that negotiated it had kept such scenarios in mind.
Federico recalled that Beebe Healthcare’s insurers were attempting to strong-arm the negotiations to $120 million, or about $5 million short of everything that could have been contributed. In the end, he and the steering committee convinced them to contribute $3 million to a Latent Injury Trust Fund, which would fund medical or psychiatric treatment for any victim who didn’t register for the class settlement before the December 2012 deadline.
There was a catch, though. The Latent Injury Trust Fund would be overseen by a panel of lawyers who represented the larger trust fund, and they would have sole discretion over the money. The fund would remain open until the money was exhausted or the youngest victims in the settlement class turned 18, whichever came first.
After that, any remaining funds would be returned to the Qualified Settlement Fund and split among the class members.
Patty Dailey Lewis, the former deputy attorney general who prosecuted Bradley alongside the late Beau Biden and is now the executive director of the child abuse prevention foundation named in Biden’s honor, recalled advocating for another solution.
She sought to have the Latent Injury Trust Fund turned over to the Delaware Department of Justice, where it could be administered alongside the Victims’ Compensation Assistance Program, which aids all victims of violent crimes statewide.
“I got shut down on that pretty fast,” she said, surmising that some involved didn’t want to bring money outside the trust. “To put such a short timeline on that fund didn’t make any sense to me, though. We knew that there would be latent trauma.”
Latent trauma is common in abuse
Cate Evans, a Lewes-based licensed professional counselor of mental health who focuses on trauma therapy and works with a lot of sexual abuse survivors, including some Bradley survivors, said it is common for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) to materialize decades after abuse takes place, like the Tenerovichs’ did. It’s a key reason why so many states have revised laws on statute of limitations to allow civil lawsuits long after abuse may have been committed.
Many of Evans’ clients are over the age of 40 and suddenly remembering childhood sexual abuse.
“They’ve had a lifetime of really high anxiety or depression or other experiences, maybe addiction or other kinds of things, and didn’t maybe understand why,” she said.
Evans explained that when the body is in trauma, the mind has a way of burying memories and feelings of that abuse to protect itself. Only when finally at ease and in a place of safety do these memories often manifest again.
Memory is also divided into explicit and implicit, Evans said, where the former includes vivid scenes and narratives that we can replay in our mind. The latter is an experience that is stored in the senses, emotions or body – maybe a smell that makes you feel at home without sending you to a particular scene.
But implicit memory is often where trauma hides, Evans said.
“It might be like, ‘I remember that kind of room, and I remember feeling terrified,’ but there’s not a memory of what happened in that room,” she explained.
Trauma goes way into the dark before it comes anywhere near the light.
Winden rowe, lpc, center for change
Through therapy, Bailey Tenerovich learned why she is uneasy when a door is left ajar – she recalled Bradley watching her undress at appointments through the open slit.
“My bedroom door has to be all the way open or all the way closed now for me to be at peace,” she said.
Her history of sexual abuse dates back to when she was unnecessarily catheterized by Bradley during an appointment. She also recalls his frequent use of a penlight in exams — a tool that held a secret camera to record Bradley’s unwitting victims.
Winden Rowe, a licensed professional counselor and director of the Kennett Square, Pa.-based Center for Change, who has worked with sexual abuse survivors in the Bradley case as well as the Nassar and Archdiocese of Philadelphia cases, agreed.
“Trauma goes way into the dark before it comes anywhere near the light, and when it starts to come to the surface is when a lot of really problematic stuff starts to present,” she said. “It presents in the form of addiction. It presents in the form of really bad interpersonal relationships, chronic infidelity, spousal or interpersonal physical violence, self harming – and they still don’t even know why.”
Survivors find dead-end
Both Bailey and Aja Tenerovich have struggled with substance abuse and mental health issues after coming to grips with the abuse they faced at Bradley’s hands.
They both also filed claims to the Latent Injury Trust Fund, seeking financial support to allow them to receive trauma-informed care.
Four years ago, Bailey applied for funding to cover the roughly $30,000 costs of a 30-day stay at Caron Treatment Centers, a Philadelphia-area facility that offers drug detox along with mental health treatment for abuse victims. Aja would later file a similar claim.
Both were denied, with the panel of trust lawyers writing in a notification letter that “we do not have written verification from a medical doctor that the treatment that is needed and requested is causally related to the actions of Dr. Bradley to a reasonable degree of medical probability.”
The family was distraught at the rejection at a time of great vulnerability. They had submitted verification from a licensed clinical social worker, who was brought to Lewes by the Department of Justice specifically to work with victims in the Bradley case.
According to emails shared with Spotlight Delaware, the trust administrators sought provider verification that included counselors. At no time did they warn that a medical degree or equivalent would be necessary to approve a claim.
More troubling to Murphy’s family, however, was the changing narrative and lack of claim support offered by the trust administrators throughout the process.
A 2021 letter from David Ferry Jr., the lead administrator, informed the family that “your daughters are not eligible to have their medical bills paid from the Latent Injury Trust because they were not plaintiffs in the class action proceedings and, therefore, do not meet the requirements to be covered for medical bills to paid by the trust.” He then recommends applying for Medicaid – which the family already received.
But Ferry’s interpretation seems to stand at odds with a plain reading of the 2014 trust agreement approved by Delaware Superior Court.
It reads that distributions of funds can only be made for the “payment of expenses for medical or psychiatric treatment of documented symptoms experienced by the beneficiary due to substantiated latent injuries, which expenses cannot be paid for through any funds allocated to that beneficiary … because the beneficiary did not receive an allocation by the claims administrator as the beneficiary did not submit a claim by the deadline and was not granted an exception to that deadline.”
That essentially excluded those who received cash through the class settlement and limited the Latent Injury Trust Fund to funding medical treatment only for those who didn’t participate in the class.
It also defies the general understanding and framework for the Latent Injury Trust Fund that was devised in the final days of the settlement discussions.
Judge Joseph Slights III wrote in his order approving the settlement that “it is recognized by all parties that each of Bradley’s former patients is a member of the class,” when pertaining to latent injury claims. An initial proposal to place a five-year deadline on latent injury claims was later removed when the fund was finally formed.
For an undetermined reason, Ferry later relented and allowed the family to file claims. They would be denied.
Aja Tenerovich said the denial was “devastating” because her family could not afford the necessary care without the assistance. She also felt the offering of potential hope through the claim process was needlessly cruel.
“In a period of time where somebody is ready for treatment, they’re willing to accept the help and they need it, to pull the rug out from under them is so detrimental to that person’s experience,” she said. “It can be life-threatening. What is this trust for, if not this?”
Ferry, whose Wilmington-based law firm Ferry Joseph has served as the lead administrator of the trust since its creation, declined to discuss the fund, how much money it currently held or its processes for filing claims with Spotlight Delaware, citing a confidentiality agreement in the civil case that created the trust.
Because the case dealt with sexually explicit crimes against minors, the vast majority of records are sealed by the court from public inspection, limiting Spotlight Delaware’s ability to uncover greater understanding of how the trust is administered. The confidentiality order that was instituted amid the earliest discussions in the case remains in effect despite many of the victims now being in their late 20s or early 30s.
Federico, the plaintiff attorney, told Spotlight Delaware that he has not dealt with claims to the Latent Injury Trust, but opined that “if there’s money left, they may as well give it. The intent was to support everyone.”
More support needed
Ultimately, Murphy’s daughters were able to receive a maximum $25,000 in financial support to attend trauma-informed care through Delaware’s Victims’ Compensation Assistance Program – the Department of Justice program that aids all victims of violent crimes to account for lost wages, medical expenses, mental health counseling, and funeral expenses.
After undergoing an application process with the DOJ, the Teneroviches were approved for support as victims of Bradley.
But Murphy is angered by the need to be supported by VCAP, a program with an annual budget of about $3 million that is primarily funded by fines paid by others, while millions of dollars paid by those negligent in Bradley’s crimes remains in a fund unused.
The family is also disappointed by the lack of support that the greater community has shown victims in the case. No support group was established to aid victims who may be experiencing latent memories and no victim advocate was afforded to assist them in dealing with the trust – in fact a letter from Ferry Joseph explicitly states that the trustees do not represent claimants and recommends they hire their own attorney.
It’s a criticism shared by Jenna Haines, another Bradley survivor who is one of the few to ever publicly identify in the wake of the case. She did participate in the settlement, receiving a $130,000 payment as a Level III victim.
“It was pretty much, ‘Here’s your settlement and have a good time,’” she recalled. “They didn’t have a lot of follow through on providing services for victims, like connecting us with therapists or checking in long term after, say, five years.”
For years, Haines engaged in therapy to grapple with her trauma and learn coping mechanisms. She suffered panic attacks when the case first broke and still deals with trauma triggers.
Today, she works as a therapist in the Milford School District, but she’s never forgotten the impact that the case had on her community.
“Not having services in place really was just a snowball effect on the drug epidemic, people not processing their traumas and people turning to other ways to cope that aren’t healthy,” she said.
Those connected to the Bradley case often remarked about how many victims they know who now struggle with drug addiction. That comes, in part, from the greater Lewes community’s desire to move on from the horrors of the Bradley case and a lack of support for those who need help, Aja Tenerovich said.
“We were all in shock. As best we could, we had to move on from it. It was too terrible,” she said, sighing heavily. “But the attitude of anybody saying, ‘Oh, that was long ago. It’s too late now.’ No. No, it fucking isn’t.”
Bradley case survivors looking to connect with other survivors can contact LewesDEHeals@gmail.com, an account that will be monitored by Margaret Murphy.
Correction: This story originally reported that Margaret Murphy was a nurse, but she served as an office assistant in Bradley’s office and was not a nurse. We regret the error.