WASHINGTON
Q13 Fox
MARCH 25, 2016, BY JAMIE TOMPKINS
SEATTLE — A Burlington woman is speaking out, no longer afraid to share a painful childhood secret of sexual abuse.
Mary Lynch says a priest named Father Michael Cody sexually molested her when she was 8 years old. She never told a soul, until a Sedro-Woolley woman came forward in May of 2015, accusing Cody of sexual abuse. The Archiodecese payed her $1.2 million to settle.
“I didn’t think anybody else had been victimized by him because I’d never heard his name before,” says Mary.
With the help of her attorney, Michael Pfau, Mary, along with 7 other women, were awarded a settlement of over $9 million from the Seattle Archidiocese.
The archdiocese says Michael Cody abused all 8 girls between 1968 and 1974 at churches in Burlington, La Conner, Swinomish and Bellingham.
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