November 22, 2005

Sides to vet abuse claims

COVINGTON (KY)
The Cincinnati Post

By Paul A. Long
Post staff reporter

With more than 370 people seeking their share of a $120 million fund created from the settlement of a class-action lawsuit against the Diocese of Covington, attorneys now must go through the laborious process of validating those claims.

That will mean meeting with people to listen to their stories of alleged abuse at the hands of diocesan priests and employees, then trying to determine where they fit into a matrix established to quantify their abuse and put a dollar figure on it.

The plan calls for payments of $5,000 to as much as $450,000 for extraordinary cases.

During a hearing Monday in Boone Circuit Court, attorneys told Special Judge John Potter they had received 373 claim forms, the first time a specific number was put on the class-action lawsuit alleging that diocesan officials perpetrated a decades-long cover-up of the sexual abuse of children by priests and other church employees. Nov. 10 was the deadline for people who wanted to make claims in the class-action.

Posted by kshaw at November 22, 2005 07:29 AM