Irish Emigrant
January 18, 2011
http://www.irishemigrant.com/ie/go.asp?p=story&storyID=8199
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| Francis Markey |
Jeff Anderson, a 63-year old St. Paul, Minnesota attorney who gained fame for leading some 1,500 abuse lawsuits against Churches in the U.S., has now co-founded a London law firm with the aim of bringing similar cases against Churches in Britain.
The new firm, Jeff Anderson Ann Olivarius Law, marks a cross-Atlantic effort to launch legal actions on multiple continents, using aggressive American-style litigation tactics and focusing on abusers who moved between Britain, Ireland and the U.S. during their careers. His new partner, Ann Olivarius, is an American-born British solicitor.
On Monday, the firm launched its first civil lawsuit, on behalf of an alleged American victim of Irish priest Francis Markey (83), who is accused of molesting the then eight-year-old boy in Granite Falls, Minnesota, almost 30 years ago. Markey is currently in Ireland, having been extradited last year in relation to the rape of a 15-year-old boy in the 1960s.
The suit was filed in a court in Minneapolis, and named as co-defendants the Diocese of Clogher in Ireland (which covers Monaghan, much of Fermanagh and parts of Tyrone and Donegal), the Diocese of New Ulm in Minnesota and the Servants of the Paraclete, an international Catholic congregation involved in the rehabilitation of priests.
Markey was ordained in 1952 and began working in the Diocese of Clogher. The suit claims that between 1964 and 1974 he was suspended three times following allegations of child sexual abuse. Each time he was sent to treatment, including at the Servants of the Paraclete in Gloucestershire, England in 1975.
The suit says officials knew the treatment was ineffective, yet after each treatment stint, Markey was reinstated as a priest. Upon leaving Ireland for the U.S., he was sent to a facility in Jemez Springs, New Mexico for treatment in 1981, before being assigned to New Ulm in 1982.
There, it is alleged the victim would visit Markey's home just across the street from St. Andrews Parish for Holy Communion training, where Markey would drink and deep kiss him. Markey was later removed after parents expressed concerns about his behavior. He later moved to South Bend, Indiana, from where he was extradited to Ireland.
The plaintiff's attorney, Patrick Noaker, says the Clogher and New Ulm dioceses both conspired to keep Markey's history a secret.
"These parents were never informed of the fact that he received treatment in three different countries for sexually abusing children, and that he had been suspended three different times by his diocese in Ireland for sexually abusing children." Noaker said.
Though Markey cannot be extradited back to the U.S. for this civil case, Anderson's new London firm will be able to partner with the legal team in St. Paul to follow through with the New Ulm lawsuit. The suit seeks unspecified damages for pain, emotional distress, psychological injuries and other damages, with Noaker calling the case an example of the "international trafficking of pedophile priests."
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