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Jorge Acosta
By Valerie Kalfrin
The Tampa Tribune
In more than a year of directing teenagers in plays and musicals at St. Petersburg’s Galaxy Center for the Arts, Jorge Acosta helped create fanciful worlds onstage that moved parents to standing ovations, a former supervisor said.
Now parents and children will be stunned to learn Acosta won’t return to the school because he made sworn statements that he had sexual relations with children years ago.
“He was very sorry,” Kirsten Perea, the Galaxy Center’s executive director, said this morning. “Due to the circumstances, I had to let him go. …
“I have to tell the kids that he is not coming back. It’s painful, but it has to be done,” she said. “They absolutely love him, so they are going to be very sad.”
Perea said she decided to dismiss Acosta on Saturday after he phoned her to say his past had become public after an article appeared in The Tampa Tribune. He testified in a sworn deposition Feb. 7 acknowledging he had sexual relations with at least three teenage boys in 1983 while working as a cleric at Mary Help of Christians School in Tampa.
Acosta, 48, testified as part of a $5 million civil lawsuit against the now-closed school and the Catholic order that operated it, the Salesian Society and the Salesian Society of Florida.
The deposition has not been filed with Hillsborough County Circuit Court. Acosta has not reviewed it or signed it.
The Hillsborough County State Attorney’s Office has said law enforcement should review Acosta’s statements for further investigation. Adam Horowitz, the Miami attorney representing two former students at Mary Help of Christians School, said today he has left phone messages to facilitate that.
Meanwhile, the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center has asked Acosta to step down from his starring role in “Cigar City Chronicles” because of the statements in the deposition.
“I’m very sad for him,” Perea said. “His career was really moving in every direction.”
Acosta joined the Galaxy Center in June 2005. Perea said he was not a full-time employee and was paid for teaching at its summer camp and for directing plays.
He worked predominantly with about 50 students ages 13 to 17, she said. He was not alone with any children, as each production involves choreography, music and other teachers, she said.
“We have always been very pleased with his work,” she said, noting she never received any complaints about his behavior. “Whatever came out, it’s in the past. There has never, never, never been anything.”
Some of the productions he directed include “Alice in Wonderland: A Musical Fantasy,” “Robin Hood” and “Scheherazade: Tales of the Arabian Nights.”
“He’s a very good director,” Perea said. “He has the imagination to see and can move people on stage.”
The “Arabian Nights” show was “very well-received, with standing ovations,” she noted. “The parents were very excited.”
The school’s Web site shows Acosta taught theater production two days a week; tuition is $85 per month. Tuition for the summer camp is $295 for each two-week session, according to the Web site.
Reporter Valerie Kalfrin can be reached at (813) 259-7800.
One should NOT make accusations about a person that they have never met. Jorge Acosta is an amazing person who has been a huge part of this community. I’m pretty sure he is not the only person that has made a mistake in their past, not to mention the fact that it was almost 25 years ago! Maybe you are old enough that 25 years doesn’t seem like that long, but to the rest of the world this amount of time is long enough. A man should not be condemned for a single mistake, otherwise many people would be in jail for the simple fact that they mowed their lawn in their shorts, which is also illegal in Florida.
Ms. Perea, you state that he said, “I’m sorry.” Well I think he’s sorry he got caught. He’s a sick individual and he took advantage of those boys. He should be locked away.PEDOPHILE!
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Posted by Taylor Crampton, Tampa on 02/27 at 11:27 PM
You have no clue what you are talking about. I have known Jorge for years and he has changed hundreds of lives for the better. People are allowed to make mistakes and learn from them. He has been trying to make up for these mistakes for over 20 years. You have no idea what you are talking about.