Former priest comes forward about abuse he endured as teen after watching 'Spotlight'

By Jessica Orbon
FIOS1 News
October 30, 2017

http://www.fios1news.com/longisland/regional-former-priest-receives-%24500K-in-sexual-abuse-settlement-from-archdiocese-of-new-york#.Wfh1qltSyUl

MANHATTAN — Former priest Stephen Ryan-Vuotto won a settlement from New York's Archdiocese after he said he suffered sex abuse at the hands of another priest when he was a teenager.

Attorney Mitchell Garabedian has worked with survivors of sexual abuse for decades.

Garabedian was portrayed in “Spotlight,” a movie Ryan-Vuotto says allowed him to reclaim his life.

"I knew I was holding a secret that took a lot of energy and strength to hold for all those years, and it was very debilitating. And this was the first opportunity I saw on a grand-scale to tell the truth," says Ryan-Vuotto.

Ryan-Vuotto was 14-years-old, living in Greenwich Village when his family priest, Father Robert Lott, started sexually abusing him.

It took more than three decades and until Ryan-Vuotto was a priest himself that he decided to talk about it.

Ryan-Vuotto entered the New York Archdiocesan Independent Reconciliation and Compensation Program and recently accepted a $500,000 settlement.

He is one of 181 survivors of sexual abuse who have been awarded settlements by the Archdiocese program.

The original deadline for victims to apply to receive settlements from the Archdiocese was Wednesday, Oct. 25, but the archdiocese has now extended the deadline to an unidentified date.