NEW JERSEY
North Jersey Record
January 14, 2019
By Deena Yellin
A former Montclair woman who has settled with the Catholic Church over sex abuse allegations spoke out Monday about her alleged abuse by her family’s priest, saying the response by the Newark Archdiocese was “despicable.”
Danielle Polemeni said she was sexually abused by the Rev. Mitch Walters at ages 13 and 14 in her Upper Montclair home and on an eighth-grade class trip to the Poconos, while she was a part of St. Cassian’s Parish and the school in Upper Montclair.
She was among five plaintiffs who won a total of $400,000 in in a July settlement that was announced Monday by their attorney, Mitch Garabedian. A sixth case is still in court, he said.
Defendants included the Newark Archdiocese, Walters, St. Cassian’s Parish and St. Cassian’s School in Montclair, and, in one lawsuit, St. John Nepomucene Church in Guttenberg, where Walters also served.
Now a mother and educator living in Ohio, Polemeni said she wants victims to know “you are not alone and this is not your fault. It’s never too late to speak your voice and to get support and look for healing.”
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