Former Lafayette Priest Agrees to Avoid Working around Minors

By David Smith
Journal and Courier
July 16, 2012

http://www.jconline.com/article/20120716/NEWS/307160023/Former-Lafayette-priest-agrees-avoid-working-around-minors?nclick_check=1

A West Lafayette mental health counselor and former Catholic priest in Lafayette has agreed never to work with or around minors under an out-of-court settlement in three lawsuits alleging he sexually abused three Navajo men when they were children.

Charles Cichanowicz, 68, who is listed in property tax records as a resident of West Lafayette, formerly worked as a priest at two Lafayette churches from 1987 to 1991. Prior to that he was a priest in the Gallup Diocese of New Mexico.

An attempt to reach him by phone Monday afternoon was unsuccessful.

The alleged abuse occurred in the Navajo Nation decades ago. In the first of three lawsuits, filed in 2007, a Navajo man claims Cichanowicz gave him alcohol and sexually abused him as a teenager in the mid-1980s. The most recent lawsuit was filed in 2009 containing similar allegations.

Patrick Noaker, a Minnesota attorney representing the plaintiffs in the case, said the settlements resulted from mediation, were reached in April and were only recently finalized. The Diocese of Gallup is named as a defendant.

Financial provisions have not been disclosed, nor the names of the plaintiffs.

However, one specific provision in particular is public and was of great importance to his clients, Noaker said.

“Cichanowicz further promises and agrees that he will refrain from working directly with minors from the date of this agreement forward,” Noaker said, quoting the agreement.

Cichanowicz, who is no longer a Catholic priest, is listed as owning property in West Lafayette. He currently holds two licenses through the Indiana Behavioral Health and Human Services Board, one as a mental health counselor, the other as a clinical addictions counselor.

For more on this story read Tuesday’s Journal & Courier.