Stockton Diocese Facing Another Civil Lawsuit

Modesto Bee
May 3, 2012

http://www.modbee.com/2012/05/02/2184071/stockton-diocese-facing-another.html

Another civil lawsuit has been filed against the Stockton Diocese alleging sexual abuse by a Catholic priest, this time on behalf of a 25-year-old man who says he was molested by Oliver O'Grady in the early 1980s.

According to the complaint, filed Monday in San Joaquin Superior Court, the abuse happened in 1992 when the plaintiff was 5 to 6 years old and O'Grady was a priest at St. Andrew's Parish in San Andreas. O'Grady was arrested there a year later and convicted of molesting two boys. He was deported to Ireland after his release in 2000, and has since been named in many lawsuits, including one pending in Stanislaus County.

A news release from the diocese Wednesday afternoon said: "Immediately upon obtaining a copy of the complaint from the court, we shared it with law enforcement authorities in Calaveras County. We have not yet had an opportunity to review the complaint."

The lawsuit comes on the heels of a $3.75 million settlement of a lawsuit against another Irish priest, the Rev. Michael Kelly, who returned to Ireland after a jury in a civil case found him liable for sexually abusing a 38-year-old man when he was a fifth-grader at a Stockton parish school.

The diocese has paid out millions of dollars in similar damages, most of them related to O'Grady.