PAWTUCKET -- Allegations of sex between a teenage boy and his boss, kept secret for 20 years, led the police on Friday to arrest a man who is now the director of the East Providence Boys & Girls Club.
Gerald Lynch, 59, a former East Providence city councilman and the former assistant director of the Pawtucket Boys & Girls Club, was arrested outside the East Providence club and charged with first-degree sexual assault.
The arrest came four days after a Pawtucket man, 34, approached the police and described in detail alleged incidents that occurred when he worked in a floral shop Lynch ran on Newport Avenue, said Detective Lt. John Clarkson.
After years of keeping the story to himself, the man finally had to talk about it, Clarkson said yesterday.
"This is not a repressed-memory kind of thing. He has always known that this happened. It has built up over his lifetime, and he decided that he needed to come forward," Clarkson said. "It's been eating at him for 20 years."
Word of Lynch's arrest drew a shocked reaction yesterday from William R. Simpson, former chairman of the East Providence Republican Committee and a longtime friend of the former councilman.
"He was very active and very well liked," said Simpson, who also described Lynch as happily married. "He never said anything that would lead me to believe that he had an interest in young minors.
"I hope everything turns out all right."
Clarkson said the alleged incidents occurred over three years, from 1982 to 1984, when the alleged victim was in his early teens. The alleged victim told police that the two performed oral sex on each other, he said.
Lynch is being held without bail at the Adult Correctional Institutions and will be arraigned tomorrow in Providence District Court. His lawyer, Leonard O'Brien, of Providence, said Lynch "totally denies" the allegations and looks forward to being released on bail.
"Mr. Lynch is very, very clear," O'Brien said, that the alleged acts "never occurred."
Lynch has been director of the East Providence Boys & Girls Club for at least seven years, Clarkson said. Before that, he was assistant director of the Pawtucket Boys & Girls Club. He is also the former chairman of the board of directors of the Blackstone Valley Community Action Program, and he served 15 years on the East Providence City Council, stepping down in 1998, when he did not seek reelection.
Clarkson said Lynch has no criminal record and that he knew of no other sexual allegations involving him. Still, he urged parents to ask children who attend or attended one of the clubs whether they "had any contact with him." Anyone with information can call the Pawtucket police at 727-9100 and ask for Detective William Magill, who is handling the case, he said.
Clarkson said the alleged victim initially called the state attorney general's office, saying he wanted to tell his story to authorities. He was referred to the Rhode Island Sexual Assault & Trauma Resource Center, a private agency that works with sexual-assault victims. On Monday, representatives from the center were with him as he told his story to the Pawtucket police.
"He was extremely upset, angry. Basically, he had to get it off his chest," Clarkson said.
Detectives followed up by having the man phone Lynch, more than once, Clarkson said. The police then contacted the attorney general's office, which advised the police to arrest Lynch on a first-degree sexual-assault charge. Clarkson would not comment on the phone conversations, but he said they were taped and will be used as evidence.
Lynch's floral shop, called Bleis Florist, Clarkson said, was located at 390 Newport Ave. The building has since been razed.
Clarkson said the police are contacting other people who worked at the store while growing up, to see whether they can shed light on the case. The shop eventually went out of business, he said.
Lynch is charged with first-degree sexual assault, rather than first-degree child molestation, because the child molestation law was not on the books when the alleged incidents occurred, Clarkson said. There is no statute of limitations on first-degree sexual assault, which can carry a life sentence if a person is convicted, he said.
