- The archdiocese has given 90 names of priests to district
attorneys. Some names may have been reported to more than one district
attorney, and they have not been announced publicly.
-
- The breakdown by county:
-
- Barnstable 6
- Essex 17
- Middlesex 23
- Norfolk 10 *
- Plymouth 10
- Suffolk 24
- * Norfolk has received another 8 names from
other sources.
-
- The archdiocese has publicly removed 10 priests since
Feb. 2. The names of all 10 have been reported to district
attorneys.
-
- Twelve priests have been sued for sexual abuse over the
last decade.
-
- Cases involving at least 70 priests have been secretly
settled by the archdiocese. It is not known how many of these have been
referred for prosecution.
-
- Since 1984, four priests have been convicted on criminal
charges.
-
- Currently, three priests face criminal charges (including
John J. Geoghan).
-
- Geoghan was convicted last month of indecent assault
on a Waltham boy, and was given a sentence of 9-10 years in prison. He
still faces two criminal trials and about 90 civil suits.
-
- The church has settled about 100 cases brought by other
Geoghan victims.
-
- Spotlight Team investigations reveal that the Archdiocese
of Boston has known for decades about child molestation charges - both
proven and unproven - against dozens of Roman Catholic priests
-
- Emboldened by the sexual molestation scandal that has
enveloped the Archdiocese of Boston, more than 200 people who claim they
were abused by priests have sought out lawyers from just three law firms
over the last several weeks.
-
- The actual number of potential new victims who have
contacted
or retained lawyers is believed to be more than 300, and likely to head
higher, according to estimates from attorneys and others who have been
closely involved in the issue.
-
- Those numbers do not include some of the alleged victims
who have directly contacted prosecutors, or who have chosen to take their
complaints to the archdiocese without retaining attorneys.
-
- ''There are bound to be a lot more victims, beyond those
who have come forward, as more information is made public,'' Carmen Durso,
a Boston attorney who represents sexual abuse victims in civil actions,
said in an interview yesterday.
-
- The floodtide of new claims against priests comes at
a time when the archdiocese is already in precarious financial condition.
Church attorneys have told lawyers for plaintiffs in pending cases that
the archdiocese's insurance coverage has been exhausted.
-
- The vast majority of those who have come forward claim
to be victims of priests who have already been publicly identified as child
molesters, or who have been quietly sidelined by the archdiocese since
1992 because of similar accusations.
-
- Norfolk District Attorney William R. Keating, who is
pursuing possible criminal charges against some priests, said yesterday
that he is not surprised by the number of new victims. Keating cited one
study which concluded that in the general population, men who abuse young
children have an average of 150 victims each.
-
- To be sure, there is no way of knowing if there are false
claimants among people who have approached lawyers. But two of the
attorneys
said they have declined some clients out of suspicion. One lawyer, Jeffrey
A. Newman, said he is requiring people making claims to also file police
reports. Filing a false police report is a crime.
-
- Donna M. Morrissey, the spokeswoman for the archdiocese,
said yesterday that the Chancery has heard from two dozen victims since
early January, three of them with fresh allegations that have led to the
removal of priests. Morrissey said she would not dispute the much higher
numbers offered by lawyers.
-
- Before the stream of new victims began to emerge, the
archdiocese already faced civil claims for compensation from about 140
alleged victims of priests - with about 90 of those cases involving victims
of defrocked priest John J. Geoghan.
-
- Those 140 cases remain, with the potential cost of
settling
them estimated to be in the tens of millions of dollars.
-
- Not counting the pending and future claims, the
archdiocese,
acting in secret, had come to terms with between 200 and 300 other victims
in the last decade, according to lawyers involved in those cases. About
100 of those have been Geoghan victims.
-
- The Globe reported on Jan. 31 that the archdiocese agreed
to secret settlements over the last 10 years that involved at least 70
priests, and the church insisted on sealed records to conceal the extent
of the problem.
-
- On Friday and yesterday, lawyers for the three law firms
most closely identified with pending or settled cases said their firms
have been inundated with calls from so many new victims that they have
had to turn many away, or add staff to process the claims. The firms are
Mitchell Garabedian, Greenberg Traurig, and Newman & Ponsetto.
-
- Mitchell Garabedian, whose law firm represents 86 of
the victims with pending cases against Geoghan, said he has about 80
prospective
new clients, not counting 50 other alleged victims who have contacted him
from other dioceses around the country.
-
- Sixty-five people who say they have been abused are in
the process of retaining Roderick MacLeish Jr., the attorney who
represented
more than 100 victims of the priest pedophile James R. Porter a decade
ago, MacLeish said on Friday. He said his firm has turned away 30 people,
some because their claims were suspect, others because the abuse happened
too long ago to fall within the civil statute of limitations.
-
- Newman, the lead partner in a small law firm, said he
has 32 new clients, all but five of them alleged victims of a French
Canadian
priest who served at Assumption Parish in Bellingham in the early 1980s
before returning to Quebec. Attempts to reach the priest, the Rev. Paul
M. Desilets, have been unavailing.
-
- ''Our phones have been ringing off the hooks, even more
than a couple of weeks ago,'' Newman said, adding that he has pressed his
daughter into service and plans to hire another attorney.
-
- MacLeish says he believes that more than 300 new victims
have already contacted lawyers, ''and there are many others who haven't,
but will. Some are not ready yet.''
-
- In the Porter case, more than a decade ago, MacLeish
said the victims came forward ''in wave after wave,'' and he sees the same
pattern occurring now.
-
- In interviews Friday and yesterday, lawyers and victims
advocates said the extent of the problem that has been disclosed in Boston,
and the admission of errors in handling priest sex-abuse cases by Cardinal
Bernard F. Law, have created a climate that encourages victims to come
forward.
-
- ''What is encouraging is that we are seeing in Boston,
in a much more concerted way than ever before, that average Catholics,
as well as prosecutors, judges, and elected officials, are treating the
Catholic Church like any other large institution - with no special favors,
or blind trust or tremendous deference,'' said David Clohessy, the national
director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.
-
- In particular, Clohessy (pronounced CLOS-ee) and others
have pointed to a November decision by Superior Court Judge Constance M.
Sweeney that forced the public release of damaging information about
Geoghan
in archdiocesan files; and public demands by Attorney General Thomas F.
Reilly and other prosecutors that Law turn over information about past
incidents of sexual abuse.
-
- After that demand, the cardinal reversed course. Since
then, the names of about 90 priests have been referred to law enforcement
authorities.
-
- All of those developments, Clohessy said, have created
a ''culture of comfort and safety'' for victims who have long held back
out of guilt and shame, as well as fear about how their claims would be
received.
-
- As recently as 10 years ago, Clohessy said, ''the most
that victims who came forward could hope for was silence from others, if
not ostracism in their parishes.''
-
- One example of the receptive climate for victims is the
case of Thomas and Christopher Fulchino, the Weston father-and-son victims
of clergy sex abuse. After the Globe reported that Thomas Fulchino had
been abused by Porter and his son by Geoghan decades apart, the family
said the response was overwhelming.
-
- ''We were incredibly touched by the number of people
who contacted us to say how proud they were of us for our courage in coming
forward,'' Susan Fulchino, Thomas's wife and Christopher's mother, said
yesterday.
-
- Durso, the Boston attorney, said extensive public and
press interest in the archdiocesan scandal has even prompted victims of
sexual abuse by family members and nonclergy therapists to seek out
lawyers.
Durso said he has four new clients in those categories.
-
- ''The public atmosphere, and the attention to this,''
Durso continued, ''has forced a lot of people to confront their demons,
because that's what these are - demons. Once they do that, their first
instinct is to say, `What can I do about the person who caused this problem
for me?' So they end up calling a lawyer.''
-
- Morrissey, the cardinal's spokeswoman, said she is aware
that many victims who have approached lawyers, reporters, and prosecutors
have not contacted the archdiocese. But she said the church would act on
any allegation it receives. She urged victims to call the Rev. Charles
J. Higgins at 617-746-5750.
-
- The Globe itself has received calls from scores of people
who have related accounts of their alleged abuse at the hands of priests.
Nearly 100 people have contacted the Globe to say that they or someone
close to them was abused by a priest in the archdiocese, with 65 of those
calls from the alleged victims themselves.
-
- Most of the calls, to lawyers, prosecutors, and the
Globe,
are from additional victims of priests whose names have already been made
public since last month when the Globe Spotlight Team reported on the
extent
of the problem concerning Geoghan and other priests. Lawyers report only
a handful of calls from new victims of Geoghan.
-
- The cardinal asserted several times in January that no
priest with a record of abusing children remained in any assignment in
the archdiocese. This month, however, he has had to remove 10 priests,
including four pastors, after evidence of past accusations of sexual abuse
surfaced.
-
- In the most recent two cases last week, pastors from
Abington and Lowell were removed after alleged victims of the priests
approached
the archdiocese for the first time.
-
- The attorneys, who have been representing victims of
sex abuse for years, acknowledged that some people claiming to be victims
might not be. But for most, they insisted in interviews, the prospect of
financial settlement is rarely a major factor.
-
- Many of the new victims, MacLeish said, ''feel guilty
they didn't do anything earlier. Many of them thought they were the
priest's
only victim. And some of them feel incredibly guilty because they have
learned that the priest who abused them molested others later on.''
-
- Added Durso: ''Every victim wants to make sure something
is done about the person who abused them. Money is not often on their radar
screen. And some of them would pay money to help make the pain
stop.''
-
-
- Walter Robinson's email address is
wrobinson@globe.com
-
- http://www.boston.com
|
