KANSAS CITY (MO)
Belleville News-Democrat
Associated Press
KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Three more lawsuits have been filed claiming sexual abuse by a retired priest who is a defendant in three other lawsuits filed last year.
The plaintiffs, two of them anonymous, sued the Rev. Thomas J. O'Brien and the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph on Wednesday. The lawsuits, filed in Jackson County Circuit Court, claim the diocese knew as early as 1969 that O'Brien was prone to abuse but did nothing to keep him from working with children.
No damages were specified in any of the actions.
The two anonymous plaintiffs claim they were molested by the priest at his cottage northeast of Kansas City. Craig Wilkerson, of St. Joseph, alleges that O'Brien began molesting him in 1979, when he was 12.
One anonymous plaintiff's lawsuit claimed he was molested from 1971 to 1975, that O'Brien gave him marijuana and other drugs and that the priest shared his bed at the cabin with a number of boys.