GEORGIA
News 2
By JoAnn Merrigan
Savannah – A lawsuit filed Thursday and served on the Savannah Catholic Diocese today opens up new wounds and new questions. The suit was filed in South Carolina Jasper County Court of Common Pleas by a 41 year old man who says he was a victim of sexual abuse when he was 13 and attending St. James Catholic School in Savannah.
It was in 1987 that the Savannah Diocese assigned then priest Wayland Brown to the school. (Wayland was defrocked in 2004, has served time in prison in Maryland for sex abuse and was also the subject of another civil suit. He has been called a “serial predator” by the group SNAP which stands for Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.)
The lawsuit says the abuse of the 13 year old from St. James School took place from 1987 through 1988 and that the victim was abused in Jasper County which is why the legal action was filed in South Carolina. The suit contends the young victim would be driven to the island which was mostly wooded area at that time by the priest and abused abused in the woods.
Attorney for the victim, Mark Tate of Savannah, contends his legal filings show that Catholic officials then in charge of the diocese knew of prior problems with Brown and even had a meeting in 1986 after reportedly hearing that law enforcement in Augusta was asking questions about Brown.
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