BUFFALO (NY)
The Buffalo News
January 29, 2020
By Jay Tokasz
A lawsuit filed Tuesday accuses a deceased Buffalo Diocese priest of wearing clerical garb while he sexually assaulted a teenage boy more than 100 times in the mid-1980s.
An unnamed plaintiff alleged that Monsignor John L. Ducette, who was pastor of St. Timothy Church in the Town of Tonawanda, began sexually abusing him in 1986 when he was 13.
It is the first time Ducette has been publicly accused of sexually abusing a child. Ducette died in 2016 at age 79.
The plaintiff said he attended Mass and performed odd jobs at the church when the abuse started, according to the Child Victims Act lawsuit filed in State Supreme Court in Buffalo. The abuse included oral sex and escalated to rape when Ducette took the plaintiff on a trip to Florida for a Catholic seminar, according to court papers.
“Plaintiff estimates that Monsignor Ducette sexually assaulted and abused him over one hundred (100) times over the course of an eighteen (18) month period,” the lawsuit reads. “Monsignor Ducette wore his religious garb while sexually assaulting and abusing Plaintiff.”
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