BishopAccountability.org
	Dad: Church Was Alerted of Priest's Threat By Ann Givens Newsday [New York] April 19, 2007 http://www.newsday.com/news/local/longisland/ny-lisex0419,0,1018840.story?coll=ny-top-headlines Five years before Matthew Maiello ever set foot in the East Meadow church where he would molest four teenagers, a parent at a Syosset church told the priest there that Maiello was dangerous, and was ignored, according to court testimony Wednesday. It was the first of several unheeded warning signs about Maiello, according to Michael Dowd, a lawyer who is suing the convicted molester, St. Raphael's Roman Catholic Church, the Rev. Thomas Haggerty -- the priest there -- and the Diocese of Rockville Centre for $150 million on behalf of two of Maiello's victims. On Wednesday, a woman testified tearfully that she began a sexual relationship with Maiello in 1993, when she was 16 and he was an assistant youth minister at St. Edward the Confessor in Syosset. Over the next few years, court sources said, the woman said she was destroyed by the relationship and was eventually driven to self-mutilation. The woman's father testified that, after watching his daughter fall apart, he went to the Rev. Joseph McComisky at St. Edward the Confessor to tell him what had happened to his daughter, and to ask him to tell Maiello's current employer that he is a danger to his young students. But McComisky did nothing, according to the man's testimony, court sources said. Brian Davey, a lawyer for the defendants, has said church leaders could not have known what Maiello was doing. But a parade of witnesses testified Wednesday that they saw signs that Maiello was too close to his students. A former church business manager, Connell Friel, said Haggerty told him before Maiello was ever hired that Maiello had "boundary issues." Kristin Borrelli, a former member of the St. Raphael's youth group, said she told Haggerty that she found Maiello kissing the female plaintiff one night. But though Haggerty later warned Maiello not to be alone with students or touch them beyond a handshake, the abuse continued, Dowd has said. E-mail: ann.givens@newsday.com
Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.