By Linda Trischitta and Tonya Alanez
Sun Sentinel
November 10, 2010
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/broward/fl-doherty-priest-evaluation-20101110,0,3587415.story
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FORT LAUDERDALE As a former priest lands back in jail to await his criminal trial for allegedly raping a boy, an attorney who has filed more than a score of civil lawsuits accusing the priest of abusing boys says he is preparing to file yet another this week.
Accused of repeatedly molesting, drugging and raping a boy, Neil Doherty, 67, has been under house arrest with GPS monitoring since March 2006.
Last week, the former priest at St. Vincent's Catholic Church in Margate and St. Anthony's Catholic Church in Fort Lauderdale was arrested after his monitor signaled he wasn't at his Lake Worth home when he was supposed to be.
A pre-trial release officer told Broward Circuit Judge Ilona Holmes that Doherty had disconnected with his GPS-monitoring system eight times since 2009.
"That doesn't cut it with this court," Holmes said. "Mr. Doherty has shown that he cannot comply with orders of the court and he comes back with bogus explanations."
Doherty claimed to be at a funeral when the monitor most recently lost contact. On another occasion, he blamed a power failure.
Holmes said she could think of no better way to keep track of Doherty's whereabouts than to confine him to the Broward County Jail until trial. No trial date has been scheduled.
Doherty, in a pale-blue jailhouse jumpsuit, looked alert, yet worn and haggard. His two sisters, distraught and tearful, huddled together on a courtroom bench.
Since 2002, civil attorney Jeffrey Herman has represented 90 abuse victims in their negligence lawsuits against the Archdiocese of Miami. Twenty-five of the victims have accused Doherty, more than any other single priest, Herman said.
"He was a serial predator who preyed on vulnerable kids," Herman said. "He destroyed a lot of lives. I have been told by many a man that they felt like their souls were slaughtered by Doherty."
Herman has settled 68 of the cases, including 21 involving Doherty. Four more victims' suits against the priest, who retired in 2002, will be filed starting this Friday, Herman said.
He is not allowed to say how much his clients have received in settlements.
But always, Herman said, "it's a familiar pattern with Doherty" that included alcohol, drugs and sometimes blackouts with the victims waking to rectal pain or to reportedly find Doherty in the midst of a sexual assault.
The lawsuit that Herman plans to file Friday in Miami-Dade Circuit Court involves a 14-year-old boy who met Doherty in about 1985 and claims he was abused numerous times over a year.
The Archdiocese of Miami knew Doherty was sexually abusing the boys but covered it up, according to Herman's lawsuits.
A spokeswoman for the Archdiocese of Miami, Mary Ross Agosta, defended the archdiocese's conduct in its dealings with Doherty.
"It wouldn't have made sense for us to move him around had we known the seriousness, and certainly the illness, that Father Doherty has," Ross Agosta said in an interview Wednesday. "The church has responded to any allegations of sexual abuse by clergy."
She estimated that that the Archdiocese of Miami had settled up to 80 lawsuits since 2002. And as of late 2007, the most recent year for which amounts were available, settlement figures had reached $21 million, she said.
The alleged victim in Doherty's criminal case settled his civil suit with the archdiocese in June 2007 for an undisclosed sum.
Now 24, he claims that beginning when he was 7, and lasting for a seven-year stretch, Doherty molested, drugged and raped him. If convicted, Doherty faces a prison sentence of 25 years to life.
The Sun Sentinel does not name alleged victims of sexual abuse.
The victim's mother, who still lives in Margate, said she is upset and frustrated by the long wait for trial, which was exacerbated when she learned via a newspaper article that Doherty had violated the terms of his release eight times.
"It saddens me that it's taken so long," she said of the nearly five-year wait for trial. "It sickens me, this whole thing."
She declined to comment about her son, other than to say that he now lives out of state.
Doherty was arrested last week because he was away from his home for 17 minutes in October, according to the Broward Sheriff's Office.
The former priest told authorities he was attending a funeral when his GPS monitor lost contact, said Sheriff's Office spokeswoman Veda Coleman-Wright.
In another instance, Doherty blamed his violation on a power failure, but GPS monitors have a back-up power source, prosecutor Dennis Siegel said in court Wednesday.
"He gave a story that was untrue," Siegel said.
Doherty's attorney, David Bogenschutz, said that despite this week's psychological evaluation showing that his client is mentally fit, he remains "concerned about Doherty's physical and emotional condition" and will quickly request a more extensive evaluation.
Tonya Alanez can be reached at tealanez@SunSentinel.com or 954-356-4542.
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