By Lauren Frayer
AOL News
December 2, 2010
http://www.aolnews.com/nation/article/delaware-jury-awards-30-million-to-priest-abuse-victim-john-vai/19741544
A jury in Delaware has awarded $30 million to a man who says he was sexually abused by a Catholic priest more than 100 times as a teenager in the 1960s. It's believed to be the single largest payout to any church abuse victim in U.S. history.
But it's unclear when the victim, John Vai, will get his money. The Diocese of Wilmington declared bankruptcy last year and has said it can afford to pay only $2 million in damages to abuse victims, and six other people have also filed lawsuits against the diocese alleging abuse.
"I think the jury is making a statement ... telling the world what they think of the behavior of the parish and the priest," Barbara Dorris, outreach director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, told the Wilmington News Journal. She said she considered the jury's award symbolic and acknowledged that Vai will probably receive only a fraction of the total amount.
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| Attorney Thomas Neuberger, center, holds up a 1966 photograph of John Vai, who was sexually abused by a Catholic priest as a teenager. |
Aside from the sheer size of the jury's award, what's unusual about this case is that jurors also found the victim's parish responsible, rather than solely the abuser priest himself. St. Elizabeth's Parish in Wilmington -- a large Roman Catholic church with an elementary school, high school and three resident priests -- will have to pay $3 million of the damages itself.
"Immediately, I feel some relief, some satisfaction of going through a six-week trial," Vai, 58, told WDEL Radio after hearing Wednesday's verdict. But he said his fight is far from over.
"We want the truth out. We want it all out. We want the Diocese of Wilmington and the parishes here, locally, to realize that they made a gross mistake," he told the station.
That could very well happen next week, when the trial enters a punitive damages phase. Vai's father-and-son legal team, Thomas and Stephen Neuberger, told The New York Times that they have saved the most damning evidence for this phase, and that the plaintiff's already record-breaking award could grow substantially.
At trial, Vai testified that he was raped and molested more than 100 times by Francis DeLuca, who worked at St. Elizabeth's when Vai was a student there. In a sworn deposition, DeLuca, now 80, admitted it was true; he didn't attend the trial and didn't offer any defense. He's already been convicted of sexually abusing a child in New York and was defrocked by the Catholic Church in 2008.
Vai also testified that when he was a small boy, another faculty priest who still works in the diocese, Msgr. Thomas Cini, witnessed DeLuca dragging him upstairs to abuse him in his bedroom at the church rectory -- and did nothing at the time. Cini has denied knowing anything about the abuse.
After Wednesday's verdict, Vai called on Pope Benedict XVI and other church officials to remove Cini from his position as second-in-command of the Wilmington diocese, the News Journal reported.
The diocese's bishop, Francis Malooly, issued a brief statement apologizing to Vai and anyone else who suffered sexual abuse at the hands of a priest. He also said he was "disappointed that the jury found the people of St. Elizabeth's liable for the acts of Francis DeLuca," and called it "unfortunate" that the parish would have to pay for DeLuca's "criminal and sinful acts" from more than 40 years ago. His statement was carried by the Catholic News Service.
Even though Vai's abuse happened more than 40 years ago, Delaware and California have passed "window" laws that temporarily freeze statutes of limitation and allow lawsuits to be filed over old abuse. The Catholic Church has successfully argued against such laws in other states like New York.
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