Priest Sex Abuse Case Goes to Jury, Brian Joyce, WCAX, August 26, 2008

Priest Sex Abuse Case Goes to Jury

By Brian Joyce
WCAX

August 26, 2008

http://www.wcax.com/Global/story.asp?S=8893701&nav=4QcSa50L

[with video]

Priest Sex Abuse Case Goes to Jury

A Burlington jury is deliberating how much the Vermont Diocese will pay in damages to a former altar boy who was sexually abused by a priest 30 years ago.

The plaintiff is a 40-year-old former altar boy who was fondled and groped 30 years ago by Father Edward Paquette.

But he is not suing Paquette. This plaintiff and 17 other former altar boys are suing the diocese. They claim documents prove that former Vermont Bishop John Marshall knew Father Paquette was a pedophile, but permitted him to serve at three Vermont parishes where he sexually molested many boys and then successfully covered up the crimes for years.

Last spring a jury determined the diocese should pay a record $8.7 million in damages to another Paquette victim.

Lawyers for the plaintiff in this case say justice demands the diocese should pay up to $12 million in compensation and punishment.

"Bishop Marshall and others at the diocese believed that priests are above the law. The rules don't apply to them," John Evers, the plaintiff's lawyer, told jurors. "And they did get away with it for a very long time. But if you do your job folks, they won't get away with it. The day of reckoning is today."

Lawyers for the diocese acknowledge the plaintiff was fondled by Paquette. They agree he should be paid $10,000-to-$15,000 for psychological counseling but nothing more because he filed suit recently only after he discovered juries were delivering huge awards in priest abuse lawsuits in other states.

Diocese lawyer Tom McCormick told jurors, "It wasn't until Boston and the cases in Boston. He got on the internet and wondered, was I sexually abused? And his research took him to a psychologist who said, yeah you were sexually abused and you've got a case."

The jury is now deciding just how good a case this is.

There have been two previous trials and another settled out of court just before trial began. In the first case, the church paid $1 million before trial. In another, a jury determined that the diocese should pay $8.7 million. But in one, the jury awarded the plaintiff only $15,000 because they thought he waited too long to file. The diocese is appealing both of those jury awards to the Vt. Supreme Court.

The diocese has also settled four other priest abuse cases out of court for $170,000 each.