GUAM
Pacific Daily News
October 25, 2017
by Haidee V Eugenio
U.S. District Court Senior Judge Alex Munson met Wednesday afternoon with most of the attorneys for plaintiffs and defendants in Guam’s nearly 140 clergy sex abuse lawsuits, as parties pursue mediation to try to settle the cases.
The 2:45 p.m. meeting in federal court was behind closed doors, and the details discussed were confidential.
Munson serves as the discovery master in the planned mediation, which the parties said will happen around March 2018. That’s much later than the original target of late October or early November, following preliminary talks in Honolulu in September.
Archbishop Anthony S. Apuron, through his attorney, Jacqueline Terlaje, took part in the pre-mediation meeting, as ordered Oct. 17 by Chief Judge Frances Tydingco-Gatewood.
Apuron has a pending motion to dismiss the lawsuits filed against him by former altar boys who accuse him of sexually abusing or raping them in Agat in the 1970s. The archbishop’s attorney has said they won’t consider any mediation until after the Vatican decides on Apuron’s canonical trial.
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