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	Delaware: Diocese Reaches Settlement in Priest Sex Abuse Lawsuit By Randall Chase The Daily Times February 15, 2008 http://www.delmarvanow.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080215/WCT01/80215032/1002/NEWS01 DOVER – The Diocese of Wilmington has reached a settlement with a Florida man who claims he was the victim of a former Catholic priest already convicted of child molestation. The settlement between the diocese and Robert Quill, 52, of Marathon, Fla., also involves St. Elizabeth's church, where, according to Quill, he and other boys were molested by the Rev. Francis DeLuca in the 1960s. At the time, DeLuca was serving as an assistant pastor at St. Elizabeth's and as a religion teacher at the parish elementary and high schools. Quill's attorneys did not disclose the amount of the settlement and said his lawsuit against DeLuca will continue. Quill, a former federal appeals court staff attorney, is the first person to file a lawsuit under a new Delaware law allowing victims of child sexual abuse to seek damages for abuse that occurred years ago. Quill testified before the General Assembly last year in support of the new la w, which abolished Delaware's two-year statute of limitations on personal injury lawsuits for victims of child sex abuse and allowed a two-year "lookback" period during which lawsuits previously barred by the statute of limitations can be brought anew. "Rob Quill thanks the General Assembly and Judge Sue L. Robinson of the federal court for providing him with an opportunity to obtain fairness and justice," his attorneys, Thomas and Stephen Neuberger, said in a prepared statement. According to Quill's attorneys, the diocese and St. Elizabeth's have apologized to Quill and admitted that DeLuca sexually molested him. DeLuca, 77, was sentenced by a New York judge last year to 60 days in jail for repeatedly molesting his 18-year-old grandnephew. Shortly after DeLuca was arrested in 2006, Wilmington Bishop Michael Saltarelli released the names of 20 diocesan priests, including DeLuca, against whom the diocese had substantiated allegations of child sexual abuse. Saltarelli previously had been dismissed as a defendant in Quill's lawsuit, which alleges that DeLuca sexually abused Quill and several other young boys at St. Elizabeth's and other churches from 1958 to 1993. It alleged that from 1968 to 1975, DeLuca abused Quill at least 300 times, starting when he was 13. "This settlement is further evidence that Bishop Saltarelli is trying to make a genuine effort to reach out to the victims of childhood sexual abuse, provide them full compensation and enable them to close a very ugly chapter of their lives," said Thomas Neuberger. Last month, the diocese agreed to pay $450,000 to settle a sexual abuse lawsuit filed by Navy doctor Cmdr. Kenneth Whitwell, who previously had been awarded $41 million in damages by a federal jury after the Rev. Edward J. Smith, a former religion teacher at Archmere Academy in Wilmington, refused to answer a lawsuit alleging that he repeatedly raped Whitwell. Anthony Flynn, an attorney for the diocese, said at the time that the settlement with Whitwell signaled that the diocese takes sexual abuse lawsuits very seriously, and that it set a tone for how the diocese would approach resolving such lawsuits.
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