"When I was growing up, priests were like gods," says the woman, who recently settled with the Diocese of Reno for her sexual abuse claims. So it wasn't at all unusual for Father David Brusky to become a trusted member of the family.

The woman's mother recalls the priest first visiting their home by walking her 8-year-old son back from school. Soon Brusky allowed the boy to be trained as an altar boy and offered to provide counseling for her daughter.

"We were impressed in his interest in the children," the mother said in a written statement to Tom Drendel, a lawyer investigating the allegations against Brusky for a possible civil lawsuit against the diocese.

The young woman, who was 13 when they met, says the attention quickly went far beyond priestly duties.

"He always told me I was the 'special one' and that he loved me more than all the others," she told the lawyer investigating her allegations. During rides in his convertible, he would pull her close, stroke her hair and ask her about her problems, she says.

The touching turned to fondling, then progressed to oral sex and rape, she said. On some occasions, he gave her glasses of wine to calm her. At other times, he held her down and covered her mouth with his hands, she says.

She felt repulsed by his aggression -- she often threw up after the sex -- but she also longed for the attention and affection, she said.

Brusky told her she was beautiful and that he had a hard time controlling himself around her, she said.

"He promised not to tell my parents," she recalls. "He also told me they would send me away if they knew how sick I was."

The sexual abuse, and the confusion it provoked, began to take its toll.

She began drinking the first time he raped her, she says, and continued to drink more as the relationship progressed. Soon she turned to drugs and became a terror at school.

"She seemed unhappy, (had) low self-esteem and was not as affectionate," her mother recalls. "It was so frustrating because of not knowing what we were dealing with."

The girl went through suicidal periods until the family removed her from school and placed her in the Home of the Good Shepherd, the mother says.

"How can I ever put on paper the impact of this horrible abuse had on my daughter, and in turn on our whole family," the mother told the lawyer. "I trusted the Catholic church. I lived according to its rules. We entrusted our most prized positions: our children. To feel they were put in jeopardy with known pedophiles is just more than either of us has been able to handle.

"Brusky is a very sick man," she adds. "Why was he allowed to be with our children?"

When asked whether he remembered the woman, Brusky at first said he was vague on who she was and tried to recall her father's name, then acknowledged that he knew of her claims.

He said he did not remember molesting or raping her and said his memory might have been affected by his stroke in 1997.