Thursday, May 30, 2013

Minn. churches are sued under new sex abuse law

From Minnesota-

A 51-year-old Twin Cities man sued Wednesday alleging sexual abuse by a Catholic priest in the 1970s, the first such lawsuit since the Child Victims Act was signed into law last week by Gov. Mark Dayton.

The act strips away the statute of limitations that previously gave child sex-abuse victims until the age of 24 to sue. Exactly what impact it will have is unclear, but St. Paul attorney Jeff Anderson, who is representing the man, said more litigation is inevitable.

“He was suffering in the shadows,” Anderson said of his client, who is remaining anonymous. “There are going to be many more [suits] to come, as they should. Now is the time for reckoning.”

Anderson’s client, Doe 1, is suing former priest Thomas Adamson, the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis and the Diocese of Winona in Ramsey County District Court. Anderson is also asking the archdiocese and diocese to publicly release the names of 46 priests who have “credible allegations of sexual abuse.”

The suit claims that church leaders knew that Adamson sexually abused boys starting in the 1960s while he worked in southern Minnesota. He was moved often, and ended up at St. Thomas Aquinas Parish in St. Paul Park from 1976 to 1979, where he sexually abused Doe 1 from 1976 to 1977, the suit claims. Adamson “groomed” the boy and his parents, Anderson said, and would sexually abuse him after taking him to athletic events or playing basketball with him.

More here-

http://www.startribune.com/politics/statelocal/209446891.html

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