BishopAccountability.org
	Second Lawsuit Filed in Priest Sex Abuse By Laura Frank The Tennessean January 21, 2000 Lawyers representing victims of former Nashville Roman Catholic priest Edward J. McKeown filed a second $35 million lawsuit against the church and Metro government yesterday, and began the process of discovery asking church and government officials for previously undisclosed information about the sexual abuse. "We're asking what they knew, when they knew it and what they did about it," said John Day, one of the attorneys filing the suits. The suit, the second in two days, was filed in Davidson County Circuit Court on behalf of a mother and her son, now 17, whom the family says McKeown molested starting in 1995 when the boy was 12. They are identified only as John Doe 2 and Jane Doe 2. McKeown was convicted in June and sentenced to 25 years without parole for repeatedly raping and molesting another boy. That boy and his mother filed suit Wednesday. Each suit seeks $8 million in compensatory damages for the child, $2 million for each mother and $25 million in punitive damages. Metro government is immune from punitive damages, so those awards would be sought from the Catholic church. These amounts are requests; a jury would have to decide any awards if it ruled for the victims. The lawsuits claim Metro and diocese officials failed to protect the victims because they did not report McKeown's abuse when they learned of it. Officials from Metro and the Nashville Diocese declined comment on the lawsuits, as did Franklin Richards, another former priest whom the lawsuit claims knew about McKeown's abuse of children, but also failed to report him to authorities. Richards, now of West Palm Beach, Fla., told police during the McKeown investigation that he himself had abused some 25 schoolboys. Yesterday, the plaintiffs' attorneys also mailed requests for information and documents from church and government officials. Among the information they are seeking: The names of any Nashville Diocese employees who have sexually abused or "otherwise acted inappropriately with minors." A list of all known or suspected victims of that abuse. To protect the identities of those victims, the lawyers have asked that they be referred to only by numbers in court documents and a confidential key to their names be provided to the attorneys. Information concerning what the church did after allegations were raised. "It's an issue of showing a pattern," Day said. "This information is relevant to prove how they handled or didn't handle this appropriately and engaged in a practice or pattern of illegal action. That's a relevant issue for punitive damages. "Failure to report one pedophile might be negligent. Repeated failure would be reckless." The attorneys also are seeking the police file of the initial 1995 investigation of McKeown that was dropped without explanation. The mother who filed suit yesterday is the same mother who first brought allegations against McKeown to police in 1995. However, she said police failed to follow through on the allegations never questioning McKeown, ignoring her repeated attempts to contact them, and failing to notify Department of Human Services officials, as required. McKeown served as a Roman Catholic priest from 1971 until church officials forced him to leave the ministry in 1989, after pedophilia treatment failed. McKeown then went to work for Metro's Juvenile Court clerk and later for a private company contracted to work in the clerk's office. He told police that during three decades he molested at least 21 boys.
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