January 06, 2005

Abuse suit targets former school leader

BOSTON (MA)
Boston Globe

By Megan Tench, Globe Staff | January 6, 2005

The former superintendent of schools for the Boston Archdiocese is accused of sexually abusing a 15-year-old boy in the 1970s, according to a new lawsuit, but a lawyer for the priest said Eugene P. Sullivan is being mistaken for a well-known pedophile with a similar name.

Boston resident Mark Martin, now 42, alleges that Sullivan, 63, fondled him during a road trip to a New Hampshire summer camp in 1977. The suit, filed in Suffolk Superior Court, is one of 10 clergy sex-abuse lawsuits filed against Boston Archdiocese priests over the past week.

"My life has been a nightmare ever since this happened," Martin said yesterday, referring to the alleged abuse. He also alleges in his lawsuit that two former priests at St. Columbkille's parish in Brighton molested him when he was 15.

The Globe does not reveal the identities of victims of sexual abuse. The alleged victim in this case agreed to be interviewed and identified.

But Boston lawyer Paul Kelly, who is representing Sullivan, said that Martin may have innocently confused Sullivan, now a pastor at Weymouth's St. Francis Xavier Church, with the Rev. Eugene O'Sullivan, a former priest at St. Agnes Church in Arlington.

Posted by kshaw at January 6, 2005 07:11 AM