MIAMI (FL)
Miami Herald
BY JAY WEAVER
jweaver@herald.com
The Archdiocese of Miami has agreed to pay the largest South Florida settlement in a Catholic clergy sex-abuse case -- more than $500,000.
The payout, disclosed Thursday, resolved a 1998 lawsuit involving a high school girl who claimed a priest at St. David Church in Davie molested her when she worked at the Davie parish, according to her lawyers, who would not provide the specific amount.
The lawyers also said they have almost reached an agreement for less than $500,000 in the same suit involving another woman who alleged the Rev. Jan Malicki sexually assaulted her when she worked in the parish and sought marriage counseling.
The two South Florida women intend to go to trial against Malicki, 56, who was also named in the lawsuit. Malicki did not want to settle because he says he did nothing wrong.
''Our clients want justice; they want their claims validated,'' the plaintiffs' lawyers, William Snihur and May Cain, said Thursday in a phone interview.