Green Bay diocese liable for molestation cover-up
- From: "ritualabuselinks@xxxxxxx" <ritualabuselinks@xxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 22 May 2012 21:28:44 -0700 (PDT)
Jury awards brothers $700K in Wis. diocese lawsuit
APPLETON (WI) San Antonio Express-News Monday, May 21, 2012
APPLETON, Wis. (AP) — An Outagamie County jury on Monday awarded two
brothers $700,000 in a fraud trial against the Catholic Diocese of
Green Bay.
The civil jury found the diocese responsible Monday for concealing a
former priest's history of child molestation.
Brothers Todd and Troy Merryfield sued the diocese in 2008, alleging
the diocese was aware the Rev. John Feeney sexually assaulted others
before 1978, when it assigned him to Freedom's St. Nicholas Church.
Feeney was convicted in 2004 for the sexual assaults of the
Merryfields and has already served his prison sentence.
The jury awarded Troy Merryfield $475,000 and Todd $225,000 in
damages, The Post-Crescent reported....
Over the past week, Jeffrey Anderson and John Peterson, the
Merryfields' attorneys, called several priests as witnesses. The
priests testified there were allegations of inappropriate behavior by
Feeney — that he swam naked with boys and showered with them after
basketball games — long before he assaulted the Merryfields in 1978.
But the bishop, who died in 2005, said in a previous deposition
testimony that if there was merit to complaints of sexual abuse by
Feeney, he would have immediately suspended the priest.
http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/article/Jury-awards-brothers-700K-in-Wis-diocese-lawsuit-3575027.php
Green Bay diocese liable for molestation cover-
up
May. 21, 2012
APPLETON — When an Outagamie County jury decided the Roman Catholic
Diocese of Green Bay covered up a priest’s history of child
molestation, it sent a message to the rest of Wisconsin, an advocate
for sexual abuse victims said....
Rev. John Feeney molested the Merryfields in 1978, when they were 12
and 14 years old. In 2004, Feeney was convicted of sexual assault of
the brothers. After the criminal trial, the brothers said they learned
the priest had a history of similar assaults in the 1960s and 1970s
that the diocese knew about and hid from parishioners at St. Nicholas
Church in Freedom, which the Merryfields attended.
So in 2008, they sued the diocese and now-deceased Bishop Aloysius
Wycislo, who was in charge of ensuring priests were fit to serve, for
fraudulent misrepresentation and sought unspecified damages....
Feeney was attending mental health counseling in 1974 after he touched
girls inappropriately at a church retreat, Rev. Lawrence Canavera
testified. Anderson and Peterson presented a letter forwarded from
psychologist Thomas Kelley to the bishop stating under stress Feeney’s
“usual controls over sexual impulses may fail and cause some
indiscretions.”
http://www.postcrescent.com/article/20120521/APC0101/305210146/Green-Bay-diocese-held-liable-molestation-cover-up-story-photo-video-?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|FRONTPAGE
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