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	First Awards Made in Covington Abuse Case By Brett Barrouquere Associated Press, carried in Kentucky.com [Louisville KY] September 13, 2006 http://www.kentucky.com/mld/kentucky/news/state/15509313.htm Louisville, Ky. - The first monetary awards were made this week to victims of sexual abuse in the class-action settlement with the Roman Catholic Diocese of Covington. The amounts awarded from the $85 million settlement weren't revealed due to privacy concerns, attorney Stan Chesley of Cincinnati said Wednesday. The settlement calls for victims to receive from $5,000 to $1 million based on the severity and duration of the abuse they suffered. Some money has also been set aside to pay for counseling for abuse victims. Chesley said the initial payments will be reduced by 50 percent to ensure that the $85 million settlement covers the more than 350 victims in the case. Meanwhile, Chesley asked the Kentucky Court of Appeals on Tuesday to stop a judge from forcing attorneys to turn over the names of victims in the case to prosecutors. Special Judge John W. Potter in August ordered attorneys to give prosecutors the names, contact information and description of the abuse from anyone making a claim in the case. Potter said state law in Kentucky requires that the names of victims and details of an alleged crime to be reported to prosecutors so they can investigate and decide whether to pursue criminal charges. However, he stayed his order until the end of September, giving attorneys an opportunity to appeal. Chesley said in documents filed with the Court of Appeals that the order violates the victims' right to privacy and could result in irreparable harm to the people filing a claim if the names were made public. "It is in the form of mental anguish and emotional distress," Chesley wrote. The settlement, reached in July 2005, covers anyone abused by Diocese of Covington employees since the 1950s. The settlement covers 361 victims who claim they were abused over a period of 50 years by priests in a diocese that once included 57 counties across a large swath of Kentucky. Covington is just across the Ohio River from Cincinnati. The Covington diocese now spans 14 counties and has 89,000 parishioners. The lawsuit also covers some Kentucky counties that were part of the diocese until 1988, when a new diocese in Lexington formed.
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