CALIFORNIA
Orange County Register
SANTA ANA – A former member of the All-American Boys Chorus has filed a lawsuit against a disgraced priest and the Diocese of Orange, alleging that church leaders ignored complaints of child sexual abuse.
At the center of the lawsuit is Richard T. Coughlin, the now-defrocked priest who founded chorus in Costa Mesa and who over the years has been accused of sexual abuse by at least a half-dozen people, resulting in more than $3 million in settlements.
Ordained in Boston, Coughlin joined the Diocese of Orange in 1965. The newly-filed lawsuit describes Coughlin as a serial pedophile whose gregarious and charismatic nature and Irish brogue masked decades of abuse.
According to the lawsuit, allegations of sexual abuse involving Coughlin first emerged in 1957, when he was still in Boston. A series of alleged victims of Coughlin’s contacted diocese leaders in both Boston and Southern California over the next several decades.
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