The city
has scheduled an update Monday on the investigation into sexual abuse
perpetrated years ago by then City Police officer Ken Estabrooks, amid
reports of many more victims have come forward. There are also rumblings
a potential class-action lawsuit.
Saint John Common
Council has approved an additional $100,000 to continue the
investigation. There may have been more than 40 victims of the abuse.
Estabrooks
was never charged in 1975 even though he confessed. Estabrooks resigned
from the police department but was transferred to City Works. Charges
were finally laid in 1998 and Estabrooks, who died in 2005, was
convicted in 1999 and sentenced to six years in prison. The Police
Commission released a report, calling the 1975 investigation
"unprofessional" which allowed a serious sex offender to go unpunished.