BRIDGEPORT (CT)
Connecticut Post [Bridgeport CT]
June 3, 2024
By Daniel Tepfer
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Bridgeport has agreed to pay a settlement to a local man who claimed in a lawsuit he was sexually assaulted as a boy by the priest who was going to officiate at his sister’s wedding.
The settlement ends the last remaining civil case against the diocese claiming sexual abuse by one of its priests.
The priest accused in the case Rev. Kieran Thomas Ahearn, listed on the diocesan Credibly Accused Clergy list for Religious Order priests, was removed from ministry in 1993. He died in 1997.
“After a few years of litigation we were able to resolve this matter with the Bridgeport Diocese,” New Haven lawyer Joel Faxon said. “The malefactor priest in this case — Thomas Ahearn — was a serial criminally convicted pedophile that the diocese flushed through several parishes until he ultimately attacked our elementary school-aged client at his sister’s wedding.”
Neither Faxon nor diocese officials would release the amount of the settlement paid by the diocese in this case.
Faxon had previously offered to settle the case for $3 million, according to court documents.
“The diocese worked cooperatively with the victim in this case to reach a resolution,” diocese spokesperson Brian Wallace said. “It remains committed to investigating all allegations brought to it regardless of how long ago the incident may have occurred.”
The settlement came as, according to court documents, a judge was to decide whether to order the diocese to turn over certain records of Ahearn’s personnel file with the diocese that include reports of therapy the priest underwent and notes regarding Ahearn between then-Bishop Edward Egan and Monsignor Laurence Bronkiewicz. The diocese had opposed turning over the documents.
The lawsuit was filed in 2021 after the state legislature voted to increase the statute of limitations to the 48th birthday of the alleged abuse victim. The statute was recently increased again to age 51.
From 1991 to 1993 Ahearn served as parochial vicar at St. Mary Church in Bethel.
The lawsuit claims Ahearn repeatedly sexually assaulted the former altar boy at St. Mary’s Church beginning when he was seven until he was 10 years old.
“During one particularly egregious act of sexual assault Fr. Ahearn raped the plaintiff on the day of the wedding ceremony of plaintiff’s sister, over which Ahearn presided within the confines of the church buildings at St. Mary parish,” the lawsuit states. A copy of the marriage license included with the lawsuit states the wedding occurred in November 1992.
As a result of the abuse, the suit states, the plaintiff suffered severe and permanent emotional distress and will continue to incur expenses for psychological treatment and therapy.
In a press release on its website in 2021, the diocese stated it removed Ahearn from ministry after learning that in 1993 he had been convicted in Massachusetts of contributing to the delinquency of a minor.
According to an Associated Press account at the time, Ahearn was accused of molesting a 16-year-old boy he picked up while on a skiing vacation. He was sentenced to two years probation.
“Until the incident leading to his arrest in 1993, the diocese was unaware of any other allegations concerning Kieran Ahern related to minors. He was promptly removed from ministry at that time,” the 2021 press release states.
Prior to being at St. Mary Parish, Ahearn served as a priest at St. Luke’s Church in Westport.
“Given that the Connecticut statute of limitations restricts anyone over the age of 48 (or 51, if the abuse occurred after Sept. 1, 2019) from bringing a civil suit, the church may be done for now with civil claims, but its crimes against the many survivors I have dealt with remain — unjustly — outside of the legal system, ignored by the church and unpunished,” said Gail Howard of the Connecticut branch of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.
In 2019 the diocese admitted for the first time that it had paid settlement amounts totaling approximately $56 million for 156 allegations of abuse by priests since the inception of the diocese in 1953.
In 1993 the first lawsuit was filed by local lawyer T. Paul Tremont on behalf of a man and woman who claimed they had been sexually assaulted by a priest, the Rev. Raymond Pcolka. At that time Bishop Egan denied that any priests had molested children.
But the diocese now acknowledges that Pcolka, who has since died, molested more than two-dozen children between the ages of five and 14 in the 1960s, 70 and early 80s.
In 2018, recently installed Bishop Frank J. Caggiano, hired a retired Superior Court Judge, Robert Holzberg, and the local law firm Pullman and Comley to conduct an investigation into the history of clergy sexual abuse in the diocese.
A report on their findings, released a year later, found that 281 people had been abused by 71 priests in the diocese since 1953, that the abuse had been known to diocese officials who took action to hide it.
Egan, who the report states moved abusive priests to other parishes where they continued to abuse children, was later promoted to Cardinal of New York. As cardinal he continued to deny knowing priests abused children. Egan died in 2015.
“He (Egan) followed a scorched-earth litigation policy that re-victimized survivor plaintiffs, dissipated valuable diocesan assets in bad-faith procedural maneuvers, and alienated large segments of the laity, the clergy and the wider public,” the report states.
Bronkiewicz, was Egan’s right-hand man in the diocese and took over the diocese after Egan was promoted. The Holzberg report cited several instances where Bronkiewicz, following Egan’s orders, took action to hide allegations of sexual abuse against priests and to transfer the accused priests to other locations where they could have further contact with children.
Bronkiewicz, who retired from the diocese before the report came out, later denied he knew priests abused children.June 3, 2024
Daniel Tepfer
REPORTER
Daniel Tepfer is a reporter with the Connecticut Post. He has been reporting on legal issues and covering criminal cases for many years.