FLORIDA
Orlando Sentinel
Mark I. Pinsky | Sentinel Staff Writer
Posted January 27, 2006
A former Lakeland woman sued the Catholic Diocese of Orlando on Thursday, saying a senior pastor ignored her pleas to do something about an associate pastor who was harassing and stalking her and eventually was charged with attacking her.
Wladyslaw Gorak, a Polish immigrant also known as Walter Fisher, was arrested last year and charged with burglary with an assault, false imprisonment, aggravated stalking and battery in connection with the October 2004 attack at the woman's Lakeland home.
The suit, filed in Orange County Circuit Court, says Gorak broke into her house, overpowered her and ripped her clothes.
Gorak had been transferred to Central Florida in late 2003 from the Archdiocese of Newark, N.J., where a parishioner also accused him of stalking, the suit and police reports said. The suit says the dioceses should have known Gorak was unfit for service.