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	Abuse Trial Targets Westfield Priest By Sam Hemingway The Republican May 7, 2008 http://www.masslive.com/hampfrank/republican/index.ssf?/base/news-14/1210144513275950.xml&coll=1 BURLINGTON, Vt. - The Rev. Edward O. Paquette, now of Westfield, Mass., was suspended from parish work by the Fall River, Mass., diocese early in his career after police found him parked in a car with a boy, a jury at a clergy sex abuse trial was told yesterday. "He had been picked up by the police while parked with a teen-age boy," the Rev. Timothy O'Connor, of Westfield, Mass., wrote in a letter to an Indiana bishop in 1963 who was thinking of hiring Paquette. "He was held at the station until the arrival of his pastor, but was not booked." The letter was among a number of confidential documents made public for the first time yesterday during questioning of Vermont diocesan officials by Jerome O'Neill, the attorney for a former Burlington altar boy who has sued the Roman Catholic diocese on claims he was molested by Paquette between 1976 and 1978. The Free Press does not disclose the identities of alleged victims of sexual crimes without their consent. The former altar boy, now 40, contends Paquette groped him between 40 and 100 times at Christ the King Church in Burlington and contends the diocese is liable for damages because it failed to properly supervise Paquette. The man now lives in Lakewood, Colo. The pending case is one of 19 lawsuits that have been filed against the Vermont diocese involving claims Paquette molested boys in parishes in Rutland, Montpelier and Burlington. The diocese does not dispute molestation claims but contends it should not be blamed now for incidents that occurred 30 years ago. It also argues the lawsuit should have been filed years ago. Paquette is not a defendant in the case. Paquette, a Westfield native, first served as a Catholic priest during the 1950s and 1960s in Fall River. He was removed from that ministry in 1963 after allegations that he had sexually molested boys. But he went on to serve in Indiana and Vermont before his permanent removal from ministry in 1978 by the late John A. Marshall, who later served as bishop of the Springfield diocese. O'Neill spent yesterday afternoon going over the previously secret documents in an attempt to show the diocese did not do a thorough background check of Paquette before hiring him in 1972. "Are you aware that the reason why the Burlington diocese did not have this information is because it did not ask the Fall River diocese for any information," O'Neill asked former Vicar General Wendell Searles. "I was not aware of that," Searles answered. Diocesan lawyers Tom McCormick and Kaveh Shahi raised few objections to O'Neill's introduction of the documents or his questioning of Searles. The documents shown to the jury also revealed new details about alleged misconduct by Paquette in Indiana, where he worked for seven years before the Fort Wayne diocese placed him on suspension for alleged "homosexual" conduct with boys.
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