ALASKA
Anchorage Daily News
By LISA DEMER
Anchorage Daily News
Published: December 23, 2005
Last Modified: December 23, 2005 at 01:18 AM
A former Kenai priest, now dead, abused a teenage girl in Kenai starting when she was 8 or 9 and continuing for eight years, a new lawsuit contends.
The late Rev. Robert Wells served as a priest in Our Lady of the Angels parish in Kenai from 1974 to 1988, when he moved to Sacred Heart Parish in Seward. He had a heart attack in 1990, had a heart transplant that year, and died in 1992, according to his obituary.
The new suit, filed last week in Anchorage Superior Court by Kenai attorney James Butler and Seattle attorney Michael Phau, names as defendants the Archdiocese of Anchorage and Our Lady of the Angels parish in Kenai.
It contends the archdiocese and the parish knew or should have known that Wells was a "dangerous child molester" who shouldn't work around children. Yet he still was assigned to serve as parish priest.