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	Jury to Get Clergy Abuse Case Today By Sam Hemingway Burlington Free Press December 16, 2008 http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/article/20081216/NEWS02/812160310/-1/NEWS05 Closing statements are set for this morning as a Chittenden Superior Court jury prepares to begin deliberations in the longest-running clergy abuse trial in the state's history. Lawyers for the state's Roman Catholic diocese and a former Burlington altar boy presented final bits of evidence before resting their cases Monday, the ninth day of testimony in the case. In August, a similar clergy abuse trial lasted eight days. The former altar boy in the current case, now a Takoma Park, Md., businessman, claims the Rev. Edward Paquette twice molested him at Christ the King Church in Burlington in the late 1970s. The man's lawsuit against the diocese argues that the church is liable for damages because it knew Paquette was a child molester when it hired him. The Burlington Free Press does not disclose the names of alleged sex crime victims without their consent. The diocese does not dispute the claim but says the anxiety and any other psychological problems the man has suffered over the years were not caused by the abuse. Monday, Judge Dennis Pearson ruled that the jury will not have to consider whether the man waited too long to file his lawsuit, throwing out what had been one of the diocese's key defenses in the case. The diocese has contended ongoing publicity about clergy abuse of children in Vermont and elsewhere should have prompted the man to make the link between his problems and the abuse by Paquette and ultimately to bring his lawsuit sooner than he did. "I do think the evidence shows there is no reason for the jury to consider whether ... (the man) knew or should have known he had a claim against the diocese for negligent hiring," Pearson said in his ruling. Monsignor Wendell Searles, the diocese's former vicar general, told the jury earlier Monday that he was unaware of the extent of priest sexual misconduct when he was put in charge in the mid-1990s of fielding complaints from alleged victims of priest molestation. "It surprised me to learn things I didn't know before," Searles said under questioning by diocesan lawyer Tom McCormick. "These things should never have happened." He said later what surprised him was the number of abuse allegations and the identities of some of the priests accused of the misconduct. "The claims were against priests I knew and thought I knew well," he said. Searles said he did not remember receiving a phone call from the former altar boy in the case before the jury, but disputed the man's recollection of the call. The man has testified that Searles told him the diocese did not know of Paquette's history of molesting boys and removed Paquette from his priestly duties as soon as it found out about it. "That was not my custom," Searles said. "If I indicated the diocese has no knowledge of Paquette's history, I was totally inaccurate." According to internal church records that are part of the court record, the diocese knew before it hired Paquette that he had molested altar boys in Massachusetts and Indiana, but hired him on the advise of church psychologists who said Paquette's sexual deviancy was under control. John Evers, the attorney of one of the former altar boys, asked Searles whether his mission in handling calls from alleged victims of priest molestation was to protect the diocese from legal danger and to get them to agree to secret, low-dollar settlements where possible. "I'm uncomfortable being portrayed as a deceptive priest," Searles said at one point. Searles, under questioning, said he was "not sure" he ever told any of the callers that whatever happened to them was the fault of an "errant priest" and not the diocese at large. Evers then produced a letter Searles wrote to one of the victims showing he had made such a remark. Contact Sam Hemingway at 660-1850 or e-mail at shemingway@bfp.burlingtonfreepress.com
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