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	Third Person Claims Sexual Abuse by Valley Priest (document) By Michelle Tuccitto Sullo New Haven Register December 10, 2010 http://www.nhregister.com/articles/2010/12/10/news/valley/doc4d027a9b873ac720969510.txt A third person is claiming in a lawsuit that he was sexually abused as a youth by a priest who most recently served at St. Augustine Church in Seymour. The man, identified as “John Doe” in court documents, filed the lawsuit Friday in Superior Court in Waterbury against the priest, Stephen Bzdyra of Seymour, the Hartford Roman Catholic Diocese, and the Meriden-based St. Stanislaus Church and St. Stanislaus School. Attorney Joel Faxon of New Haven, who represents Doe and two other individuals who previously filed claims alleging abuse by Bzdyra, said the abuse happened while Doe attended the St. Stanislaus School in the late 1970s or early 1980s. Faxon said his client was taken to a basement storage area and sexually molested. According to the lawsuit, Bzdyra spanked the plaintiff’s bare buttocks with a ping-pong paddle and fondled him. Bzdyra allegedly demanded that the minor plaintiff fondle him, and when the plaintiff refused, he threatened to have him removed from the school because his parent lived out of town. The lawsuit alleges Bzdyra also forced the plaintiff to perform oral sex on him. “(Bzdyra’s) method of attack is — he’d pick out a child who is vulnerable, with potential family issues, and then threatens the child with the loss of a parent or the loss of state assistance if he tells about the attack,” Faxon said. According to Faxon, his client was about 10 or 11 years old at the time of the incident. Faxon declined to give the town where his client currently resides, other than to say he lives in New Haven County. Faxon said he has been contacted by about 10 people who claim to have been abused by Bzdyra, and he anticipates filing more lawsuits. “It is a very individual decision, and it is difficult for them to relive this stuff,” Faxon said. “It is helpful for them to see others who are willing to stand up to the church.” Attorney Hugh Keefe of New Haven, who represents Bzdyra, said Friday he hadn’t yet had an opportunity to review the latest lawsuit, so he declined to comment on it specifically. “It sure has taken these people time to assert their claims,” Keefe said, referring to the years between the alleged misconduct and the lawsuits. After the first two lawsuits were filed, Keefe told the Register his client has denied all the allegations against him. The Archdiocese of Hartford placed Bzdyra on leave after the first lawsuit was filed. William Dotson, 34, of New Haven, filed a lawsuit in July claiming the priest sexually molested him when he was an altar boy in the 1980s at St. Francis Church in New Haven, and later at St. Hedwig Church in Naugatuck. A second man, who wished to remain anonymous, subsequently filed a lawsuit claiming he also was sexually abused by Bzdyra in the late 1970s at St. Hedwig, where he was a parochial student. Michelle Tuccitto Sullo can be reached at mtuccitto@nhregister.com or at 203-789-5707.
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