MAINE
Bangor Daily News
By Judy Harrison, BDN Staff
Posted Nov. 12, 2013
PORTLAND, Maine — The Maine Supreme Judicial Court on Tuesday ruled against an Augusta man who claimed the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland knew the priest who abused him as a child was a serial abuser.
The justices unanimously upheld the decision of Superior Court Justice Donald Marden. He granted summary judgment to the diocese last year.
William Picher, 39, claimed in his lawsuit, originally filed in 2007, 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 alleged that Melville’s supervisors at the Chancery in Portland knew the priest had sexually abused children previously but hid allegations from parishioners.
Picher’s attorney’s argued that the diocese had a duty to disclose to parishioners allegations that Melville had assaulted a 14-year-old in 1980 while in the seminary.
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