MIDLAND (TX)
Reporter-Telegram
Bob Campbell
Staff Writer
Midland Reporter-Telegram
12/17/2005
Hearing attorneys' pre-trial arguments Friday in a lawsuit alleging the sexual abuse of a boy by his priest, District Judge George Gilles took the case under advisement and said he will make a ruling on whether it may proceed either next week or in early January.
Defense lawyers Don Griffis of San Angelo and Bill Clifton of Midland invoked a two-year statute of limitations they said expired in September last year with the now 22-year-old alleged victim having first made the allegations public at the Odessa Rape Crisis Center Sept. 19, 2002.
Representing the Catholic Diocese of San Angelo, Griffis said neither the diocese nor the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate of Texas, the priestly order of the Rev. Domingo Gonzalez Estrada, should be liable even if the priest did molest the boy six times between 1989 and 1994.
"Any such acts would have been a deviation from his employment and purely personal to him," said Griffis. "The duty of a priest is to reflect God's love and not his own sinful desires.
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