Judge Attaches $10 Million in Priest’s Assets, NBC Connecticut, October 22, 2010

Judge Attaches $10 Million in Priest’s Assets

NBC Connecticut
October 22, 2010

http://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/local-beat/Court-Places-Multi-Million-Dollar-Lien-on-Assets-of-CT-Priest-105516558.html

A judge has decided that an altar boy is entitled to $10 million from a priest he accused of sexual abuse.

A Supreme Court judge decided there was enough evidence to place a $10 million lien, a prejudgment remedy, on Rev. Stephen Bzdyra’s assets.

“(T)here was more than adequate evidence to support the plaintiff’s claim that (Rev. Stephen) Bzdyra sexually abused him when he was a young boy,” Justice Robert Berdon wrote in a memo of decision released on Thursday.

William Dotson, 34, of New Haven, said the abuse happened in the 1980s at St. Francis Church in New Haven, and later at St. Hedwig Church in Naugatuck and went on for several years.

The archdiocese suspended Bzdyra in August as the church investigated allegations.

Attorney Hugh F. Keefe of New Haven, who represents Bzdyra,told the New Haven Register that the decision “meaningless” because Bzdyra doesn’t have anywhere close to $10 million in assets. “This is not a big deal at all. It’s simply a finding of probable cause by one referee.”

Bzdyra has denied all the charges against him, O’Keefe said, and told the Register that he expects the case to go to trial.