KENTUCKY
Lexington Herald-Leader
By Bruce Schreiner
ASSOCIATED PRESS
A judge's written order yesterday gave plaintiffs' lawyers the go-ahead to advertise terms of a potential $120 million settlement between the Roman Catholic Diocese of Covington and alleged victims of sexual abuse.
Judge John W. Potter's order, issued in Boone County Circuit Court in Burlington, came in a class-action lawsuit accusing the Northern Kentucky diocese of a decades-long cover-up of sexual abuse by priests. The order formalized his preliminary approval of the proposed settlement.
"We're moving forward," plaintiffs' attorney Stan Chesley said.
Potter, a retired circuit court judge from Louisville, also agreed to expand potential plaintiffs to include those allegedly abused before 1956 or allegedly victimized by lay employees of the diocese.
"It's what both the plaintiffs and the defendants want, which is to be inclusive of everyone," Chesley said in a phone interview.