MAINE
Bangor Daily News
By Judy Harrison, BDN Staff
Posted June 11, 2013
BANGOR, Maine — An Augusta man who claims he was abused in the 1980s by a Catholic priest has asked the Maine Supreme Judicial Court to consider what the bishop knew and when he knew it about the conduct of the Rev. Raymond Melville.
Justices heard oral arguments in the case Tuesday at the Penobscot Judicial Center. It was the second time the court has considered the case, originally filed in February 2007 in Kennebec County Superior Court.
The state’s high court four years ago affirmed 5-2 that under Maine law charitable groups such as churches, museums and sports organizations are immune from claims for negligent actions, but it said they are not immune from intentional actions.
William Picher, 39, claims that Raymond Melville, 70, of North Carolina, who left the ministry in 1997, sexually assaulted him between 1986 and 1988 when Picher was a student at St. Mary Catholic School in Augusta. Picher also alleges that Melville’s supervisors at the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland knew the priest had sexually abused children previously but hid allegations from parishioners.
Gerald Petruccelli, the Portland attorney representing the diocese, told the justices Tuesday that the bishop’s office did not receive its first complaint about Melville until 1990, after the alleged abuse of Picher ended. It could not conceal what it did not know, he said.
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