PENNSYLVANIA
Dayton Daily News
By JOE MANDAK
The Associated Press
PITTSBURGH — Eighty-eight former students who were sexually molested by a Franciscan friar who worked as an athletic trainer at a Catholic high school have settled their legal claims for $8 million, according to two attorneys who represent more than half the victims.
Altoona attorney Richard Serbin represents 13 former students at Bishop McCort High School in Johnstown, and Boston attorney Mitchell Garabedian represents 33. The students said they were abused by Brother Stephen Baker, who worked at the school, 60 miles east of Pittsburgh, from 1992 to 2001.
Baker, 62, committed suicide at his monastery in Newry by stabbing himself in the heart in January 2013. That occurred nine days after the Youngstown, Ohio, diocese disclosed abuse settlements with 11 former students who said they were abused by him at John F. Kennedy High School in Warren, Ohio, from 1986 to 1990.
News of those settlements prompted many of the Bishop McCort victims to come forward.
Serbin has been pursuing clergy abuse claims for nearly 30 years but said, “What’s unique here is the sheer number of students that were abused.”
“I’ve filed claims against child predators who have had multiple victims, but this certainly was a predator that was prolific, and the position he was given as an athletic trainer allowed him to have such easy access to young people,” Serbin said.
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