Court rules former Yakima priest to pay $5 million in sexual abuse case

KIMA
August 24, 2015

http://www.kimatv.com/news/crime-and-justice/322723751.html

BBOLD ADVERTISING NEWS RELEASE -- On Thursday, August 20, 2015, the Honorable Rosanna Malouf Petersen (Chief Judge of the Federal District Court, Eastern District of Washington) issued a civil judgment against Father Dale Calhoun in the amount of $5 million in a lawsuit filed by a man Calhoun sexually abused between the ages of 12 and 17. The Plaintiff filed his lawsuit under the pseudonym “C.S.” to protect his privacy.

Fr. Calhoun, is still incardinated as a priest in the Diocese of Yakima. This means that, despite multiple claims against him, Calhoun remains a priest enjoying the protections of the Catholic Church. Calhoun, who currently lives in the Beaumont, Texas area, sexually abused C.S. when C.S. was a teenaged boy. That Fr. Calhoun remains incardinated as a priest continues a disturbing pattern of conduct by the Bishops of Beaumont and Yakima especially in light of the early warnings about him.

When Calhoun was still in seminary, underclassmen complained about Calhoun asking them to discuss sexual fantasies and masturbation as part of a bogus “study” into human sexuality. Calhoun was sent for evaluations. A psychiatrist warned superiors against ordaining him as a priest. The Bishop of Beaumont ignored the warnings and ordained Calhoun as a priest.

Fr. Calhoun’s abuse of young boys in Yakima and Beaumont has been the subject of several lawsuits over the years, including one case that was appealed to the Washington Supreme Court in 1998. That case, C.J.C. v. Corporation of the Catholic Bishop of Yakima, confirmed the right of victims of childhood sexual abuse to bring claims against priests and the Churches that hire and place them in the community. Many of the victims of clergy abuse, including C.S., suffer life-long trauma as a result of the sexual abuse by priests including depression, anger and violence issues, alcohol and drug dependency, alienation from their faith, and relationship deficits. Often it takes years of therapy for sexual abuse victims to address their trauma.

The judgment against Fr. Calhoun is the largest civil judgment entered against an individual priest in Central and Eastern Washington. The Plaintiff intends to execute the judgment against Calhoun, in either his home state of Texas or wherever he may own property, holding him personally accountable for sexual abuse of minors for the first time. In every lawsuit previously filed regarding abuse perpetrated by Calhoun, the Diocese of Beaumont and/or the Diocese of Yakima paid the settlement, not Calhoun.

According to Vito de la Cruz, of Tamaki Law in Yakima, “This judgment vindicates C.S. and the other victims of Calhoun’s sexual abuse and the Church’s negligence. Like many other victims of clergy sexual abuse, C.S. wanted to be heard and his suffering acknowledged.”

Bryan Smith also of Tamaki Law stated, “The judgment entered by Court is significant because of the amount, but more importantly, because it holds Calhoun accountable for decades of emotional trauma he inflicted on our client.”