Mistrial in Clergy Sex Abuse Trial, Burlington Free Press, August 27, 2008

Mistrial in Clergy Sex Abuse Trial

Burlington Free Press

August 27, 2008

http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080827/NEWS/80827011&referrer=FRONTPAGECAROUSEL

BURLINGTON -- The case of a former altar boy who claimed he was molested by the Rev. Edward Paquette in the late 1970s was declared a mistrial today by Judge Matthew Katz after the jury signaled that it was unable to come up with a verdict after 16 hours of deliberation.

Katz, who sent a message to the jury this morning designed to encourage them to keep talking, dismissed the panel shortly after noon after the jury sent him a note saying “We cannot agree and we can no longer proceed.”

Jerome O’Neill, an attorney for the former altar boy, said the jury’s inability to reach a decision on monetary damages was disappointing but was encouraged that the jury had told the judge it viewed the diocese as liable for the abuse his client occurred.

Plaintiff's atorney Jerome O'Neill reacts to a mistrial in the case of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Burlington sued by a former altar boy in Superior Court in Burlington on Wednesday August 27, 2008.
Photo by GLENN RUSSELL

“I anticipate a significant number of those people were prepared to enter a serious verdict for our client,” O’Neill said. “We’re not discouraged.”

Tom McCormick, a diocesan lawyer, said the hung jury was an indication that the $8.7 million verdict handed down by a jury in a similar clergy abuse case in May after five hours of deliberation was an “aberration.”

“To have a jury here not return the same verdict with the same speed is affirming to our position,” McCormick said.

The former altar boy, now 40 and a resident of Waitsfield, claims the diocese was to blame for his abuse because it hired Paquette knowing he had previously molested boys in three states, including Vermont, prior to arriving at the Christ the King Church where the abuse involving the altar boy took place.

The diocese, which does not dispute the abuse claims, said its officials in the 1970s continued to employ Paquette based on the advice of church psychologists who said Paquette’s sexual deviancy had been cured.