Archdiocese Settles Sex Abuse Claim for $1.25 Million, Attorney Says

By Manya Brachear Pashman
Chicago Tribune
May 18, 2015

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-mccormack-sex-abuse-settlement-met-20150518-story.html

A man in his late 20s who said he was abused by former priest and convicted sex offender Daniel McCormack settled a claim with the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago for $1.25 million, according to his attorney.

The settlement, reached this weekend, eclipses a trial that was set to begin May 26, for which the late Cardinal Francis George provided video-recorded testimony before his death.

The victim claimed that he was repeatedly sexually assaulted during the fourth and fifth grades by McCormack while he was a student at St. Ailbe Catholic Church on Chicago's South Side, said the plaintiff's attorney, Eugene Hollander.

The man said he suppressed the memories of the childhood abuse until he heard news about the Jerry Sandusky scandal at Penn State University in 2011. He filed a lawsuit in Cook County Circuit Court the following year.

Hollander said unlike most of the sexual abuse claims against McCormack, the alleged abuse of his client occurred at McCormack's first pastoral assignment. McCormack was assigned to St. Ailbe's from 1994 to 1997.

In 2007, he pleaded guilty to five charges of criminal sexual abuse at his last assignment at St. Agatha Catholic Church in North Lawndale.