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	$16M Settlement Reached in Priest Abuse The Associated Press, carried in Houston Chronicle [Milwaukee WI] September 1, 2006 http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/nation/4157007.html MILWAUKEE — The Archdiocese of Milwaukee has agreed to pay more than $16 million to settle sexual abuse claims involving 10 victims in California and a priest the archdiocese had transferred there, church officials said Friday. Half the settlement will come from insurance, the archdiocese said. The deal was reached after two days of court-ordered mediation. "Our hope, always, is to continue our progress in reaching resolution with anyone who was a victim of clergy sexual abuse," Milwaukee Archbishop Timothy Dolan said in a statement. "We believe this agreement brings closure to all cases in California and, hopefully, provides healing for victims/survivors." The Milwaukee Archdiocese had transferred Siegfried Widera to California in 1981, knowing the priest had a history of abuse. Differences between California and Wisconsin law allowed the victims in California to sue years after the alleged abuse, while the Wisconsin victims could not. A Wisconsin appeals court ruled Tuesday that that state's six-year statute of limitation had expired, even though the accusers had documents showing the archdiocese quietly transferred Widera from one parish to another after a 1973 conviction on sexual perversion with a teenager. The Wisconsin accusers argued that the archdiocese defrauded them by concealing priest's history and that clock on when they could sue should not have started until recently, whey they discovered more details. The appeals court disagreed, ruling that clock started with the last sexual assault against each victim. Peter Isely, a Milwaukee leader in the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said Friday called the California action "sort of a mixed blessing." "You have a small handful of victims in California of Milwaukee priests being able to receive some kind of justice where a vast majority of victims of these priests cannot," he said. Widera jumped to his death from a hotel balcony in May 2003 in Mazatlan, Mexico. A statement from the offices of Freberg and Associates, which represented eight of the California victims, praised the $16.65 million settlement and said the victims appreciated meeting with Dolan after the settlement had been reached. "No plan of prevention will be successful unless there is full recognition and acknowledgment of the harm that comes to every child that suffers at the hands of sexual predator," the lawfirm said. "This first step of reconciliation is perhaps the true value of any settlement."
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