LOS GATOS (CA)
Mercury News
By Brandon Bailey
Mercury News
The family of a Jesuit priest who committed suicide last year has filed a wrongful death lawsuit claiming that his religious superiors failed to protect him from sexual abuse at a Los Gatos residential center for retired clergy.
Jesuit officials have denied the allegations in the suit. But the case raises echoes of a scandal that rocked the Roman Catholic religious order three years ago, when the Jesuits paid $7.5 million to settle a lawsuit by two developmentally disabled men who were molested by two members of the order while living at the same facility.
Now the family of the late Rev. James Chevedden says that one of the same molesters groped Chevedden's genitals while he was in a wheelchair recovering from an earlier suicide attempt.
``They didn't protect this guy,'' said Robert L. Mezzetti II, a San Jose attorney who represents Chevedden's family. ``They put an invalid who had mental and emotional problems in the custody and care of a sex offender.''
The order's top official for California, the Rev. Thomas Smolich, refused to discuss the lawsuit's specific allegations. While expressing sympathy for Chevedden's family, Smolich called the lawsuit ``groundless and without merit.''