MEMPHIS (TN)
Commercial Appeal [Memphis TN]

October 9, 2024

By Lucas Finton

[Editor’s note: This story contains details of child sexual abuse. If you or someone you know is a victim of sexual assault, you can call the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 800-656-HOPE (4673).]

A man who has said he was sexually assaulted by a priest from Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Humboldt has filed a lawsuit against the church and the Catholic Diocese of Memphis, alleging that the church and diocese actively covered up the priest’s abuse.

The lawsuit comes nearly a year after The Commercial Appeal identified Joel Wiggs as a priest with multiple complaints lodged against him. Despite The CA confirming three of those complaints — one from 2002, 2013 and 2019 — Wiggs was not part of the diocese’s list of “credibly accused” priests as of 2020.

According to the lawsuit, Wiggs was ordained as a priest in 1949 and worked at Sacred Heart in Humboldt between 1967 and 1995. During that time, the lawsuit alleges Wiggs would be sexually abusive towards minors.

Wiggs died in 2001 at the age of 78. Online, as recently as 2016, people have praised Wiggs as an outstanding member of the Humboldt community. He was a volunteer fireman and fire chaplain, was on the National Catholic Disaster Relief Service Committee and, according to an article in the Jackson Sun, was “very active” with the Boy Scouts.

“From 1967 to 1995, Sacred Heart employed Wiggs as a priest and provided him with opportunities to come into frequent contact with children,” the lawsuit alleges. “Wiggs would use these frequent opportunities involving contact with children to get naked with boys in a hot tub, massage them with baby oil, show them pornographic movies, sexually touch them, anally penetrate them and engage in other sexually abusive misconduct.”

One of those victims, and the person who filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Tennessee in mid-September, was Turner Casey. The CA spoke with Casey about his experiences with Wiggs in late 2023.

“Our understanding is that the plaintiff claims he was abused more than 40 years ago by a priest who has been deceased over 20 years,” said Rick Ouellette, a spokesperson for the Catholic Diocese of Memphis, in an email. “Few (if any) people still work at the Diocese who were employed at that time. We take all allegations of abuse seriously, even very old ones, and we do our best to investigate such claims. Since litigation is now pending, we are unable to publicly comment any further about this matter and have referred it to our legal counsel.”

According to the lawsuit, Casey was “10 or 11 years old” when Wiggs started to invite him to outings with other boys his age. Though not being raised Catholic, the lawsuit says that Wiggs “was a frequent fixture” in Casey’s household.

During these outings, according to the lawsuit, Wiggs would “encourage plaintiff and the other boys to drop their shorts while water-skiing” and encourage them “to bathe in the river nude.” Similar behavior, which included Wiggs being naked himself, according to the lawsuit, followed when the priest would take boys to the Jackson to play racquetball and have dinner.

According to the lawsuit, Casey was in fifth grade when Wiggs asked him to come to his home, the rectory at Sacred Heart, for a sleepover. The first time Casey was there, the lawsuit said nothing “untoward” took place.

For the next three years, the lawsuit said the sleepovers became a weekly occurrence, and Casey began sleeping in Wiggs’ bedroom. During these later sleepovers, the lawsuit alleged Wiggs would “pour baby oil all over” Casey and then get on top of him to “very aggressively rub the baby oil all over him.”

At one point, the lawsuit alleges that Wiggs “started anally penetrating plaintiff with his fingers” and shower with him.

According to the lawsuit, after The CA published the story naming Wiggs and publishing Casey’s allegations of sexual abuse, “multiple other people” reached out to Casey about their own abuses that they endured from Wiggs. One person said they had also reported Wiggs to the Diocese of Memphis.

The lawsuit goes on to allege that Wiggs’ abuse was known to the diocese and Sacred Heart, saying that they both “actively took steps to protect Wiggs, conceal their own wrongdoing in supervising (or failing to supervise) Wiggs and prevent survivors of abuse by Wiggs from filing civil lawsuits.”

What does the lawsuit allege of the Memphis Catholic Diocese and Sacred Heart?

The lawsuit lists eight counts for bringing the lawsuit. The first count cites negligence, alleging that the diocese and Sacred Heart “zealously maintained secrecy concerning rampant child sexual abuse” by clergy and employees.

To carry out that secrecy, the lawsuit alleges the church and diocese failed to disclose complaints to law enforcement, maintained secret archives with evidence of sexual abuse, destroyed incriminating documents, threatened families to withdraw complaints and paid victims and families in exchange for secrecy.

Count four alleges Sacred Heart and the diocese are in breach of their fiduciary duty due to Wiggs’ actions, as the lawsuit says he was a representative of both when he is accused of sexually assaulting Casey.

“As an agent and representative of the diocese, Wiggs deepened and affirmed the diocese and Sacred Heart’s fiduciary relationship with plaintiff because he singled plaintiff out and spent time with him under the guise of providing plaintiff with guidance while acting in his capacity as an employee of the diocese and Sacred Heart,” the lawsuit read. “Plaintiff placed his trust in the diocese, Sacred Heart and Wiggs, as their agent and employee, thereby placing the defendants in a position of influence and superiority over him.”

The fifth count of the lawsuit alleges constructive fraud, saying that because the diocese and Sacred Heart “held themselves out as institutions that would protect vulnerable children,” Wiggs not being removed misled Casey and the public about the organizations’ commitment to safety.

More: Gone but not forgotten: Months later, former Knoxville Bishop Richard Stika is threatening priests

Count seven alleges that the diocese and Sacred Heart “intentionally engaged in extreme and outrageous conduct” by not informing the public that Wiggs had allegations of sexual assault, allowing Wiggs to spend time alone with Casey and by not stopping the alleged sexual assaults or informing Casey’s parents of them.

Other counts included additional allegations of negligence, including a lack of sexual abuse training for staff and priests within the diocese.

The lawsuit asks for an unspecified amount in damages.

Legal trouble for Memphis, Nashville and Knoxville dioceses

Casey’s lawsuit is not the first to be filed against a Catholic Diocese in Tennessee. In February 2022, director for religious education Michael D. Lewis, who worked at Saint Rose of Lima Catholic Church in Murfreesboro, was sentenced to 20 years in prison after pleading guilty to four counts of statutory rape .

Those charges all occurred between 2014 and 2016, according to law enforcement officials. A civil lawsuit was filed in Davidson County alleging that Saint Rose and Nashville Diocese officials failed to properly vet Lewis and then did not launch an internal investigation and did not notify the police after a parish employee found text messages between Lewis and the victim.

Further east, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Knoxville and its bishop are being sued. That lawsuit alleges that the diocese did not properly investigate allegations of sexual abuse against a former employee. That bishop resigned in 2023, though the Knoxville News Sentinel reported in April this year that he would contact whistleblowers and threaten them with a lawsuit.

One of the people threatened was a witness in the sexual assault lawsuit against the Knoxville Diocese.