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	Vt. Church Settles Child Sex Abuse Cases for More Than $20 Million By Kevin O’connor Times Argus May 13, 2010 http://www.timesargus.com/article/20100513/NEWS/100519978 Vermont’s Catholic Church agreed Thursday to pay more than $20 million to settle almost 30 outstanding priest misconduct lawsuits against it. The state’s largest religious denomination will give 26 accusers a collective $17.65 million to drop child sex abuse cases pending in Burlington’s Chittenden Superior Court. It also will grant an unspecified sum confirmed to be at least $3 million to several more plaintiffs who won jury verdicts now on appeal. The unprecedented agreement doesn’t preclude other accusers from filing lawsuits in the future. But the settlement, at least for the moment, ends an eight-year saga in which 36 former altar boys and young churchgoers sued the statewide Roman Catholic Diocese for negligence over the last half-century in hiring and supervising pedophile priests. The 118,000-member diocese will pay the plaintiffs by selling its 32-acre historic headquarters overlooking Burlington’s Lake Champlain (it’s now looking for new office space) and its 26-acre Camp Holy Cross property along Colchester’s Malletts Bay. “No funds from parishes, institutions, charitable agencies of the diocese or the Bishop’s Fund have been used for past settlements, and none are being used to meet the financial obligations resulting from these present settlements,” Vermont Catholic Bishop Salvatore Matano said in a letter posted on the diocese’s website. In the message, Matano apologized to the survivors — “This has been a very painful process for the victims and for all the members of our diocesan family” — and, thanking “Our Lord,” “beg his forgiveness for any insensitivity or lack of charity which I may have shown throughout this process.” Burlington lawyer Jerome O’Neill, representing the plaintiffs, said he had spoken to each before accepting the agreement. “I give great credit to our clients for their courage in coming forward and persevering,” said O’Neill, who started receiving cases shortly after news of a national scandal in 2002 led the state attorney general’s office to investigate the Vermont diocese. The state reviewed misconduct charges against 40 recently practicing or retired priests but didn’t charge anyone criminally because the claims found credible were too old to prosecute under various statutes of limitations. Accusers, however, are free to file civil lawsuits. A private arbitrator will meet with the 26 outstanding plaintiffs to decide how they will share their $17.65 million settlement. In addition, the diocese has agreed to drop its state Supreme Court appeals and pay undisclosed sums to three Burlington natives who won large Superior Court jury verdicts, including Perry Babel (who received a record $8.7 million in May 2008), David Navari (nearly $3.6 million in December 2008) and Michael Keppler ($2.2 million last October). “The terms of those settlements were much more modest than the jury awards,” the bishop wrote in his letter, “but, at the request of the plaintiffs, the precise amounts are confidential.” O’Neill said only that the sum brought the total settlement to more than $20 million. His office then released a statement from two unnamed clients. Wrote one: “Although this is a monetary victory for all the plaintiffs, it’s far from an emotional victory. The feelings I have for the Catholic Church are still bitter.” And the other: “This isn’t about a situation 30 years ago, it is about an institution that knew all along what was going on and then covered it up.” O’Neill acknowledged that several clients questioned whether they should settle rather than publicize their case before a jury. But he said after so many years, it was time to move forward. “It will never be erased,” the lawyer said, “but here, you close this chapter.” Contact: kevin.oconnor@rutlandherald.com
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