BishopAccountability.org
	In Mixed Verdict, Jury Says Man's Case Brought Too Late Associated Press, carried in Boston Globe December 4, 2007 http://www.boston.com/news/local/vermont/articles/2007/12/04/jury_begins_deliberations_in_priest_sex_trial_in_burlington/ BURLINGTON, Vt.—A jury Tuesday found that a man who sued the Roman Catholic Diocese of Burlington for his alleged molestation by a priest 30 years ago should have done so years earlier. After almost eight hours of deliberations, jurors found that the Diocese had failed to adequately supervise now-defrocked Rev. Alfred Willis and awarded his accuser, James Turner, $15,000 in compensatory damages. But it also found that under the statute of limitations, he should have brought the claim by 1998 -- six years before he did. Turner, 47, of Virginia Beach, Va., says the Rev. Alfred Willis performed a sex act on him in a motel room in Latham, N.Y., in 1977 and attempted to do it again months later in a visit to his family's home. The former Derby man sued the church in 2004 for negligent supervision, saying it failed to protect him from Willis. Willis, who was originally named in Turner's suit, later settled out of court. But the case -- the first sex abuse case naming the Diocese to go to trial -- proceeded to trial. Turner hugged his wife after the verdicts were read in a hushed Chittenden County Superior Court courtroom but declined comment. "In these situations, we don't talk about victory," said Bishop Salvatore Matano, who sat through the trial. "This has been extremely painful, I'm sure, for the plaintiff, for any victim of abuse, for their families and for our Diocesan family. It has been a very hard week for all of us to reflect on this subject." Thomas McCormick, one of the Diocese's lawyers, said it wasn't clear whether the Diocese would have to pay the money, given the statute of limitations finding. "The statute of limitations is an affirmative defense. If the jury was persuaded by the statute of limitations, then we should win. On the other hand, that was a question that was thoroughly discussed by the court. "I'm sure the plaintiffs will be raising that in post-trial motions," McCormick said. Turner's lawyer didn't say whether there would be such an appeal. "We're disappointed by the result," said Jerome O'Neill. "I do think it stands for the proposition that if you're the Diocese and you drag out every piece of someone's psychological history, and you beat them up as they did this man on the witness stand, you may be able to be successful in the short term. "In the longer term, I think it's a self-defeating policy," he said. Last June, the first trial of the case ended in a mistrial when a judge ruled that church lawyer David Cleary violated a pretrial order banning lawyers from suggesting that Turner's brother -- a priest who'd been friends with Willis during their seminary days -- had a homosexual relationship with Willis and was somehow partly responsible for what allegedly happened to James Turner. The case returned to court last week for the retrial, before a new judge and a new jury. In it, Turner's lawyers presented evidence about the misdeeds of three other priests and the Diocese's handling of allegations about sexual abuse of boys, saying church officials were worried about liability and not the well-being of children. One witness -- another Willis accuser -- testified in the trial that Willis was known on the playground at St. Anthony's parish in Burlington as "Deacon Al, your bedtime pal." But the church failed to seek criminal prosecution of accused priests or tell the parishes where they were reassigned about past allegations against them, Turner's lawyers contend. "They took on known pedophiles. They moved priests around. It was a regular practice and it came from the top," said John Evers, one of Turner's lawyers, in his closing argument to the jury Tuesday. Later, in a rebuttal argument, O'Neill compared the church to "the piano player in a house of ill repute," implying that the Diocese had to have known about Willis, just as the theoretical piano player would know that prostitution was the business he worked in. Turner, sitting at a lawyer's table, wept into his hands as O'Neill criticized the church for a courtroom defense he said was "mean spirited." Church officials, who don't dispute whether Turner was molested, say the only red flag they had about Willis before that was two years earlier when the rector of the seminary where he was in training said there was an allegation of homosexual conduct. "It was checked out and investigated and determined to be of no merit," said Cleary. The first notice to the Diocese of sexual misconduct by Willis came in 1978, when parents of children at St. Anthony's began to come forward with complaints, according to the church. Neither Turner, Turner's family nor the church had any reason to suspect Willis was a threat prior to the 1977 incident in the motel room, Cleary said. In it, Turner -- sleeping with six or seven other people after the ordination ceremony for his brother -- says he woke to find Willis performing a sex act on him. Turner, who didn't report the incident until 2002, says he didn't realize the harm he allegedly suffered for years after that, but church lawyers said he knew as early as 1981 and that the suit filed after the statute of limitations had expired. Cleary told the jury to focus on one element: "What did the Diocese know about Alfred Willis, and when did they know it?"
Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.