Salvation Army settles sex-abuse case

The Salvation Army has paid half a million dollars to settle a child sex abuse lawsuit with a man who claims he was sexually abused by his Salvation Army swim coach when he was a boy.

Paul Cermak of Port Orchard alleged the abuse began when he was 11 and Robert DeHaan was aquatic director at the Salvation Army's branch in White Center, just south of Seattle.

Cermak and several other alleged victims sued the Salvation Army in 2005, accusing it of being negligent when it hired DeHaan in 1973 and allowed him to continue working there for several years.

Dan Woods, a Salvation Army attorney, said DeHaan had no criminal convictions when he was hired as a part-time swim coach. At the time, Woods noted, DeHaan also worked as a swim coach in the Seattle public schools system and later got clearance to become a foster parent.

"We dispute that the Salvation Army had any prior knowledge that this fellow had any tendencies toward child abuse," Woods said Tuesday.

The Salvation Army admitted no wrongdoing in the settlement, reached in late July.

DeHaan, 59, first registered as a sex offender in King County in 1992, stemming from 1988 convictions in Oregon for sodomy, compelling prostitution, and furnishing alcohol to a minor, according to a records keeper in the detectives unit that handles the county's sex offense cases.

In 1995, DeHaan was sentenced in King County to more than three years in prison for statutory rape and communication with a minor for immoral purposes. He remains registered as a Level III sex offender in King County.