BUFFALO (NY)
WKBW TV
February 25, 2019
By Charlie Specht
A renowned Boston attorney is suing the Buffalo Diocese for $300 million on behalf of a Niagara County woman who said she was abused by a Franciscan priest in the 1970s and 1980s.
Mitchell Garabedian, made famous by the Academy Award-winning movie “Spotlight”, has filed a lawsuit in state court against the Buffalo Diocese, the Conventual Franciscan religious order and Cardinal O’Hara High School.
The suit alleges his client, Gail Holler-Kennedy, was sexually abused by Fr. Mark S. Andrzejczuk from 1978 to 1982 at O’Hara, where Fr. Andrzejczuk was a teacher.
The priest, who died in 2011, would write passes excusing Holler-Kennedy from another teacher’s class and he would then sexually abuse her, the lawsuit states.
“The abuse occurred approximately twice a week for approximately three years, beginning when Plaintiff was approximately 14 years old and ending when she was approximately 17 years old,” the filing states.
The diocese, the high school and the Conventual Franciscan order “had a duty not to aid a pedophile such a Father Andrzejczuk” and also also had the responsibility as mandated reporters to report the abuse, but did not, Garabedian claims.
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