SIOUX CITY (SD)
Sioux City Journal

February 22, 2021

By Nick Hytrek

A man who had alleged that he was sexually abused by a priest in the late 1960s has settled a lawsuit against the Diocese of Sioux City.

Samuel Heinrichs had sued the diocese in October 2019, saying he was sexually and physically abused by the Rev. Dale Koster at Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Mount Carmel, Iowa.

Terms of the settlement agreement are confidential, said Heinrichs' attorney, Patrick Hopkins, of West Des Moines.

"We were able to resolve the case," Hopkins said.

The diocese released a similar statement.

"The matter has been resolved," said Dawn Prosser, director of communications.

The lawsuit, filed in Woodbury County District Court, was dismissed Wednesday.

Heinrichs, who was living in California when the suit was filed, was a student at the Our Lady of Mount Carmel grade school when Koster was the head of the school, and the abuse began in 1968 when Heinrichs was in the fourth and fifth grade and recurred when he was in the eighth grade, the lawsuit said.

"Koster used his status and substantial power as a priest to groom (Heinrichs) for sexual abuse, to convince plaintiff that the abuse was normal, to convince him that reporting his abuse would be futile and to sexually abuse him," the lawsuit said.

WATERTOWN (NY)
NNY360

February 22, 2021

By Sydney Schaeffer

Ogdensburg - The Diocese of Ogdensburg has been named as a defendant in a child sex abuse lawsuit filed in state Supreme Court late last week.

The plaintiff, identified in court documents as LG 83 DOE, filed suit Feb. 17 in state Supreme Court in St. Lawrence County against the diocese and St. John the Baptist Church in Keeseville, which is a hamlet that straddles the border of Clinton and Essex counties.

The plaintiff is a resident of New York state and was born in 1963.

In the suit, it’s alleged that Monsignor Thomas J. Robillard, who is now dead, committed acts of sexual assault, battery, rape and more against the plaintiff. The alleged acts happened between the years of 1970 and 1973 at the Keeseville church.

Monsignor Robillard, an Ogdensburg native, served at various other churches in St. Lawrence and Lewis counties throughout his career with the diocese. He retired in 1993 and resided in Norfolk until his death.

Monsignor Robillard died at Claxton-Hepburn Medical Center in March 2009. He was 91 years old.

POUGHKEEPSIE (NY)
Hudson Valley Post

February 18, 2021

By Bobby Welber

On Wednesday, Greenstein & Milbauer, LLP, a personal injury law firm based in New York City filed a lawsuit in Dutchess County Supreme Court alleging that from approximately 2004-2008, when the victim was approximately 12 to 16 years old, he was repeatedly sexually abused while a resident at The Children's Home of Poughkeepsie.

Helen Fahy, acting as an or the administrator of The Children's Home of Poughkeepsie, allegedly groomed the boy over a period of time before physically assaulting him. The sexual abuse endured for approximately 3.5 years, officials say.

"Helen Fahy had Plaintiff participate in mutual oral sex and intercourse at least once per week at her office at The Children's Home of Poughkeepsie and every day at her home when Plaintiff was on break. It is alleged that throughout the period in which the abuse occurred, Defendants were generally negligent, they negligently employed, supervised, and retained employees, agents, and/or representatives, including Helen Fahy, who sexually abused minor residents, including Plaintiff, and gave them access to children," Greenstein & Milbauer, LLP wrote in a press release.

*

Helen Fahy is listed on the New York State Sex Offender's database as a Level-2 Sex offender. In 2017 she was sentenced to 18 months in prison after she was convicted for raping someone younger than 17-years-old. She was arrested by the Hyde Park Police Department in 2016, according to the New York State Sex Offenders database.

YONKERS (NY)
News 12

February 22, 2021

News 12 has learned that the number of people suing The Children's Village in Dobbs Ferry for sexual assault allegations has now doubled.

Eleven more men have come forward with allegations against The Children's Village, bringing the total to 22.

The survivors claim they were sexually abused by staff and older residents when they were boys as young as 6. Their allegations date back to the 70s.

The attorney representing the men discussed with News 12 why they are coming forward now, decades after their alleged abuse.
"Their sexual identity to a certain extent was thrown into question when they were kids. Some of them had been fed alcohol and drugs," says Robert Greenstein, the plaintiffs' attorney.

The Children's Village was supposed to be a safe haven for kids - many of them homeless, runaways or juvenile delinquents.

WASHINGTON (DC)
Catholic News Service via National Catholic Reporter

February 22, 2021

By Paul Finney Jr.

New Orleans - An ongoing series of discussions between New Orleans Archbishop Gregory M. Aymond and Kevin Bourgeois, the leader of the New Orleans chapter of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, has led to a significant broadening and restructuring of Archdiocese of New Orleans' response to abuse survivors.

Aymond announced Feb. 11 that Joey Pistorius, director of the archdiocesan Catholic Counseling Service, will become the archdiocese's new Victims' Assistance coordinator April 1.

The victims' assistance office will move from its current location in the archdiocesan administrative offices to the offices of the Catholic Counseling Service.

In addition, Bourgeois, who is a licensed clinical social worker, will serve as a volunteer who will offer training to the counseling team when there are disclosures of sexual abuse trauma.

The archbishop, on the recommendation of Bourgeois and other victims' advocates, also will appoint a sexual abuse survivor to the Independent Review Board, a body primarily composed of lay professionals who review allegations of abuse to determine their credibility and make such recommendations to the archbishop.

KANSAS CITY (MO)
Global Sisters Report - National Catholic Reporter

February 22, 2021

By Dawn Araujo-Hawkins

Anne Gleeson was 12 years old when she says Sister of St. Joseph of Carondelet Judith Fisher — her charismatic, redheaded history teacher at Immacolata School in Richmond Heights, Missouri — began singling her out for special attention.

"She'd wander around the classroom, and she'd lean on my chair and press her fingers into my back. Or she'd send me a little note or leave a present in my desk," Gleeson, now 63, said. The secret, forbidden touches gave Gleeson shivers.

She says the rape began in 1971 when she was 13, although it would take three decades and some therapy for her to recognize it as such. In Gleeson's adolescent mind, she was simply head over heels in love with a woman 24 years her senior. The sexual contact happened anywhere and everywhere, Gleeson said: in stairwells at the school, in Fisher's bedroom at the convent, on the overnight trips Fisher arranged with Gleeson's mother and another Sister of St. Joseph.

To me, it was almost miraculous," Gleeson told Global Sisters Report. "I was even kind of jealous of the ring on her finger. She was the bride of Christ — and, yet, she told me that we would always be together forever."

According to the watchdog group BishopAccountability.org, as of September 2020, 162 women religious have been publicly accused of sexual abuse in the United States. Mary Dispenza, who heads the subgroup within the Survivors Network for those Abused by Priests (SNAP) for those abused by Catholic sisters, has received more than 90 phone calls and emails with stories of both physical and sexual abuse, about 60 of them just in the last two years.

But Dispenza, a former Religious of the Sacred Heart of Mary, suspects that the real total might be in the thousands. After all, there are more than 6,700 credible abuse accusations against priests, and women religious, globally, outnumber priests by more than 200,000.

But for two decades, the singular focus of both the media and the Catholic Church when it comes to sexual abuse seems to have been only priests.

SYDNEY (NEW SOUTH WALES, AUSTRALIA)
Sydney Morning Herald

February 23, 2021

By Jenny Noyes

A former Labor party official and Catholic priest told a Sydney court he feels guilty and ashamed for exploiting vulnerable boys in Vietnam and the Philippines for his own sexual gratification and said he never doubted that what he was doing was criminal.

Peter Andrew Hansen, who has also practised as a lawyer, gave evidence during a sentence hearing in the NSW District Court on Tuesday after he pleaded guilty earlier this month to 31 charges, including one of engaging in sexual intercourse with a child under 18 in the Philippines and 15 counts of producing child abuse material.

He said he feels guilt and shame not only for breaking the law but for “contravening my own standards of morality” in his exploitation of the boys he abused.

“The record of my life says I did work for people who were in difficult circumstances and yet here with these victims, these boys, I exploited them.

“I didn’t only exploit their age, I exploited the fact they came from a poor Asian country,” he told the court. “I not only contravened society’s standards... I also used and manipulated to my own advantage, a power imbalance between me and them.”

“I never doubted the criminality of my action and I understand that exacerbates my culpability,” he said.

ROME (ITALY)
Associated Press

February 19, 2021

By Nicole Winfield

The Vatican said Friday it expects a deficit of nearly 50 million euros ($60.7 million) this year because of pandemic-related losses, a figure that grows to 80 million euros ($97 million) when donations from the faithful are excluded.

The Vatican released a summary of its 2021 budget that was approved by Pope Francis and the Holy See’s Council for the Economy, a commission of outside experts who oversee the Vatican’s finances. The publication was believed to be the first time the Vatican has released its projected consolidated budget, part of Francis’ drive to make the Vatican’s finances more transparent and accountable.

The Vatican has run a deficit for the past several years, narrowing it to 11 million euros in 2019 from a hole of 75 million euros in 2018. The Vatican said Friday it anticipated the deficit would grow to 49.7 million euros in 2021 but that it expected to make up the shortfall with reserves.

Francis particularly wanted to release information about the Peter’s Pence collections from the faithful, which are billed as a concrete way to help the pope in his ministry and works of charity but are also used to run the Holy See bureaucracy.

The funds have come under scrutiny amid a financial scandal about how those donations were invested by the Vatican’s secretariat of state.

ALAMOGORDO (NM)
Alamogordo Daily News

February 22, 2021

By Nicole Maxwell

The case alleging complicity in the rape of a child against several Catholic entities scheduled to begin in December 2021 was moved to July 2022.

The case was originally scheduled to go to jury trial on December 13, 2021, but that trial date was canceled due to a scheduling error, court records show.

A pre-trial conference is set for June 9, 2022 in front of New Mexico Second Judicial District Judge Daniel Ramczyk with the jury trial expected to begin at 8 a.m. on July 11, 2022.

The case was filed by a John Doe against several parishes, dioceses and the Servants of the Paraclete alleging each were complicit in allowing Fr. David Holley, who moved to Alamogordo in the 1970s, to sexually abuse the complainant.

DENVER (CO)
Crux

February 21, 2021

By John L. Allen Jr.

Rome - During the St. John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI years, the Vatican had a council of cardinals from around the world who allegedly oversaw its financial affairs. Members of that body routinely complained that the information they received was incomplete, that it lacked credibility and was fundamentally untrustworthy.

Two of the prelates voicing those objections most consistently were Cardinals Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Buenos Aires, Argentina, and George Pell of Sydney, Australia. Thus when the new “Papa Bergoglio” made Pell his tip of the spear for Vatican financial reform in February 2014, it boiled down to one veteran reformer turning to another, despite their clear ideological differences on other fronts.

Unfortunately, the odd couple partnership between Francis and Pell fell apart almost before it could begin. The rift had nothing to do with the sexual abuse charges against Pell in his native Australia, which came later – it was about the transition from what the two men had been against, to what they were actually for.

OECUSSE (EAST TIMOR)
Associated Press via The Citizens Voice

February 23, 2021

By Raimudos Oki

A defrocked American priest went on trial Tuesday to face charges he sexually abused young girls at his shelter for orphans and children from impoverished families, in the first clergy sex case to emerge in East Timor — the most Catholic place in the world outside the Vatican.

Richard Daschbach, 84, a former missionary from Pennsylvania, is facing 14 counts of sexual abuse of children under 14 years old, as well as one count each of child pornography and domestic violence, according to the country’s prosecutor general.

He faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted.

Police presence was heavy at the small courthouse near the beach, as about 100 supporters of the former priest showed up but were denied entry to the courtroom for the closed proceedings.

Devout followers in the young country of 1.3 million — 97% of whom are Catholic — have been sharply divided by the case, with some families and politicians pitted against one another and tensions so high accusers fear they will be targeted by violence if publicly identified.

Former President Xanana Gusmao, himself a revered revolutionary fighter, was briefly present in the courtroom with Daschbach on Tuesday. The former leader is still very powerful in the country, and some — including his own children — have questioned why he is publicly supporting a man accused of abusing children.

WOODLAND PARK (NJ)
The Record and NorthJersey.com

February 22, 2021

By Abbott Koloff

One of two men who have accused Brooklyn Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio of sexually abusing them as children in Jersey City decades ago has filed a lawsuit based on allegations that he made public last year.

The suit, filed last week in New Jersey Superior Court, alleges that DiMarzio sexually abused the man repeatedly when he was a 6-year-old boy at Holy Rosary parish in 1979 and 1980. The accuser, Samier Tadros, who lives in Florida, went public with the allegation in 2020, months after another man publicly alleged that he had been abused by DiMarzio at another Jersey City parish in the 1970s.

The bishop has in the past denied the allegations by both men. On Monday, his attorney, Joseph Hayden, issued a statement saying DiMarzio had passed a lie detector test.

“The allegations in the lawsuit against Bishop DiMarzio never happened," Hayden said in the statement.

He said DiMarzio agreed to take a lie detector test after a letter alleging abuse was sent to the Catholic Archdiocese of Newark in March 2020. That letter had been sent by Tadros and his attorney. The bishop's "categorical denial of the claim was found to be truthful by an independent retired law-enforcement polygrapher of national stature," Hayden said in the statement.

The statement addressed only the allegation in the lawsuit. Hayden said in a subsequent email that DiMarzio was also asked during the lie detector test about allegations made by the other accuser. "He categorically denied both allegations and he was found to be truthful as to both answers," Hayden said.

Both accusers are represented by Mitchell Garabedian, a Boston attorney, who said he anticipates filing a second lawsuit "in the near future." The attorney said in an email that lie detector tests are "unscientific and therefore unreliable. The results of it would not be admissible in court."

HONG KONG
Union of Catholic Asian News

February 22, 2021

Richard Daschbach faces 14 charges of sexual abuse of children under the age of 14, child pornography and domestic violence

Dili, East Timor - A court in Timor-Leste has started the trial of a self-confessed pedophile American priest who was dismissed from the priesthood by the Vatican on charges of child abuse in 2018.

The trial of Richard Daschbach, 84, a former priest and missionary from the Society of the Divine Word, started on Feb. 22 but was abruptly postponed until the next day, reported Associated Press.

According to Timor-Leste’s prosecutor general, Daschbach faces 14 charges of sexual abuse of children under the age of 14, child pornography and domestic violence. If convicted, he faces up to 20 years in prison.

Meanwhile, he also faces wire fraud charges in his homeland in the US and has been placed on Interpol’s red notice list, an online database of fugitive international criminals.

FRESNO (CA)
San Joaquin Valley Sun

February 18, 2021

By Alex Tavlian

http://sjvsun.com/news/bakersfield/resigning-from-priesthood-harrison-claims-fresno-catholic-bishop-sacrificed-the-gospel-for-politics-and-money/

Craig Harrison, a longtime priest with the Fresno Roman Catholic Diocese who held the title of Monsignor, resigned his post on Thursday following a 22-month leave that sparked a flurry of defamation lawsuits stemming from accusations of misconduct.

“It was almost two years ago that Bishop Armando Ochoa called me into his office to put me on temporary administrative leave because of a phone call he said he received of an accusation against me,” Harrison said during a Thursday afternoon press conference at the office of his attorney.

Through 2019 and early 2020, prosecutors in four counties investigated the claims and uniformly declined to prosecute on a combination of insufficient evidence or lapse in the statute of limitations for the offenses.

“He wouldn’t tell me what the accusation, he wouldn’t tell me where it came from, and the church’s guidelines have always said that before a priest is removed, an investigation has to be done to protect his name.”

Subsequent to discussions with Ochoa, in April 2019, a wave of accusations and claims of sexual misconduct perpetrated by Harrison dating back to his earliest priestly duties in Fresno, Merced, and Kern counties emerged.

“That did not happen,” Harrison said of an initial, internal inquiry by the Diocese.

OECUSSE (EAST TIMOR)
Associated Press via ABC News

February 21, 2021

East Timor abruptly postponed the trial of a defrocked American priest facing allegations he sexually abused young girls at a children’s shelter he ran in a remote enclave in East Timor — one of the most Catholic places on Earth

East Timor abruptly postponed the trial Monday of a defrocked American priest facing allegations he sexually abused young girls at a children’s shelter he ran in a remote enclave in East Timor — one of the most Catholic places on Earth.

Soon after Richard Daschbach, a former missionary from Pennsylvania, arrived in the courtroom, judges said they needed more time to make revisions to documents and asked the 84-year-old defendant to return on Tuesday.

The former priest is charged with 14 counts of sexual abuse of children under the age of 14, as well as counts of child pornography and domestic violence, according to the country’s Prosecutor General.

NEW YORK (NY)
First Things

February 22, 2021

By Francis X. Maier

For Catholics, the Second Vatican Council (1962–65) stands as the key event of the last 60 years. It renewed the Church’s self-understanding. It reimagined her relations with the Jewish people, other Christians, and the world. It also acknowledged in a new and powerful way the importance of the lay vocation.

It did not, however, break radically with the past, notably regarding authority. In the person of the local bishop, stressed the council, “the Lord Jesus Christ . . . is present in the midst of the faithful.” Every local bishop has the authority to teach, encourage, govern, and correct the faithful entrusted to him. Thus, as “father and pastor” of his people, he should be “an example of sanctity in charity, humility, and simplicity of life,” with the duty to “mold his flock into one family” so that all “may live and act in the communion of charity.”

Those are beautiful words. They’re also profoundly sobering. Reading the council’s documents about the duties placed on a bishop is a bracing experience. Ambition in the Church is not necessarily a bad thing; it’s naïve to assume otherwise. But any man longing for the job had better think twice and carefully. Any privileges that once went with the work of a bishop have thinned out over the past few decades as the demands have fattened up. The abuse scandal of the last 20 years, the hostility of today’s cultural and political environment, and the toxic nature of criticism within the Church herself have led many men—some claim as many as a third of candidates—to turn down the episcopacy when offered. Mediocre, incompetent, and even bad men still do become bishops. The remarkable thing is how many of our bishops, the great majority, are good men doing their best, and doing it well, as a “father and pastor.” I saw this firsthand in 27 years of diocesan service. I observed it again and again over the past two months.

BAKERSFIELD (CA)
KGET

February 18, 2021

By Robert Price

Monsignor Craig Harrison’s battle of almost two years with the Roman Catholic Diocese of Fresno appears to have come to a close — at least in the most meaningful sense.

Harrison announced Thursday he is leaving the priesthood.

It was an emotional day for Harrison, both difficult and liberating. After almost two years of limbo — suspended by the Diocese over allegations of sexual impropriety and barred from even the appearance of performing priestly duties — Harrison, pastor of Bakersfield’s St. Francis of Assisi Church, surrounded by family and his team of attorneys — announced he was moving on.

It’s time, he said, to re-engage with the community, even if it’s without his clerical collar.

ARMAGH (IRELAND)
Swords Today

February 17, 2021

By Scout Mitchell

Since 2017, the Catholic Church in Ireland has dedicated a day of prayer for victims of sexual abuse. “I am convinced that prayer and relationships with survivors of abuse are a modern creation of physical and spiritual compassion,” said Bishop Emon Martin, President of the Episcopal Conference in Ireland.

The first Friday of Lent, February 19, is celebrated in Ireland as a day of prayer for survivors and victims of sexual abuse.

Lent has been celebrated in Ireland every year since 2017, at the behest of Pope Francis, at the behest of some of the survivors. During the day, read a prayer and light candles of atonement in the cathedrals and in all the parishes of the country, “As a church apologize for the suffering caused by the abuse.”

“When we light these candles, we will remember our brothers and sisters and their families who marked their lives by the abuse they suffered,” explains Bishop Emon Martin, Archbishop of Armagh and President of the Episcopal Conference in Ireland. “His faith was severely betrayed, and those responsible for the abuse within the church brutally tested his faith.”

The Irish Catholic Primate recalls the honor of meeting the abused, survivors and their families several times in the four provinces of Ireland: “Many have told me about the importance of prayer and the need for the Church to be open to justice and atonement, never to forget them. I was humbled by his courage and I moved by his courage ”.

SYDNEY (NEW SOUTH WALES, AUSTRALIA)
Sydney Morning Herald

February 12, 2021

By Declan Fry

“Groomers groom communities, not just children.” This sentiment occurs throughout Witness, veteran investigative journalist Louise Milligan’s follow-up to 2017’s Walkley Award-winning Cardinal: The Rise and Fall of George Pell. Working deep within the ninth circle of Dante’s hell, Milligan’s counsel interviewees (almost invariably men) seek to uphold the principle of “beyond reasonable doubt” at any cost – especially if the client is both monied and powerful.

Through her experience as a witness during the Pell trial, Milligan, who won the people’s choice award in the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards, learns first-hand how the adversarial system of cross-examination – with its indignities and seething manipulations, its brow-beating and haranguing – visits new traumas upon the multiply abused. Yes, multiply: first by their abuser; then by their trial; and finally by the aftermath of the process – perhaps the abuse whose pain lingers longest.

Although she acknowledges that there are counsel ready to engage in cross-examination without eviscerating witnesses, much of the old guard depicted here don’t trouble themselves too much. Among them, Robert Richter QC emerges as one of the more vain, tunnel-visioned, and immoderately foolish – not least in his own words.

EL PASO (TX)
KTSM

February 19, 2021

By Natassia Paloma

A vigil was held Friday in Juarez for women and children.

Several organizations came together to bring awareness for women, boy and girls who are victims of abuse.

Candles were lit, and participants dressed in black.

At the vigil, organizers demanded a fair trial for a minor who was allegedly abused by a priest, Aristeo Baca.

The trial ended this week with final arguments. Judges will give final sentence next week.

AUSTRALIA
Australian Broadcasting Corporation

February 18, 2021

By Rhiannon Shine

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-02-18/facebook-news-ban-sees-sex-abuse-survivors-lose-archive/13167708?fbclid=IwAR0Ae90iNd4m0iwxT_ZtYqe8RR3p_yEQot98o-PtMZYAVAy37gJKLa2vwRs

A survivor of clergy abuse who started a Facebook group to help other survivors says he is "devastated" by the social media giant's decision to block Australian news.

Richie Scutt, who was sexually abused by an Anglican priest when he was 11 years old, started the Facebook group Survivors and Friends in 2016.

He said he started the group to share news reports on the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse and it became a lifeline for many.

Mr Scutt said the group had grown to around 200 members from across Australia and still primarily shared news stories.

He estimated more than 2,000 news articles had been shared to the Facebook group since 2016, and said he was devastated to find they had all disappeared when he logged onto Facebook this morning.

KERALA (INDIA)
The News Minute

February 21, 2021

The accused pastor, who according to police, goes around houses preaching religious matters, was arrested from Konnathady on Saturday.

Kunnathunad police in Ernakulam district on Saturday arrested a 74-year-old Christian pastor for allegedly sexually assaulting a minor girl. The accused, Mathew is a resident of Mukaddam near Konnathady in Idukki district. According to the police, the crime took place in January and the girl’s mother who came to know about the incident filed a complaint in Kunnathunad police station. The accused pastor, who according to police, goes around houses preaching religious matters, was arrested from Konnathady on Saturday.

Mathew has been charged with various provisions under Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, said police. “We cannot reveal other details on where the alleged crime took place or other details as that would reveal the identity of the child,” an official of Kunnathunad police station said. After the arrest, the accused has been remanded to judicial custody by court.

ENGLAND
The Sunday Times

February 21, 2021

By Sian Griffiths

The safeguarding leader who prompted the school to report concerns over a teacher now in jail has been taken on full-time

Eton College has appointed its first director of safeguarding after a child abuse scandal that she helped stop.

Alice Vicary-Stott has been hired to the full-time post at the boys-only boarding school, where Princes William and Harry and Boris Johnson were educated.

Her appointment follows last year’s conviction of Matthew Mowbray, who taught at Eton for more than 20 years, for offences against pupils at the £42,500-a- year school.

Vicary-Stott was the “local authority designated officer” overseeing children’s safety for three councils when Eton first reported its suspicions about Mowbray to her in May 2019. She advised that the case be referred to the police and Mowbray was arrested within days.

LA JOLLA (CA)
La Jolla Light

February 19, 2021

By Ashley Mackin-Solomon

The Bishop’s School in La Jolla has been sued by a former student over allegations of sexual misconduct by a teacher while the student was a minor during the 1970s and ‘80s.

The suit, filed in November in San Diego County Superior Court, alleges offenses including sexual battery, intentional infliction of emotional distress and unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor. The unidentified plaintiff seeks damages “in an amount to be determined at trial.” A trial date has not been set.

The suit accuses the plaintiff’s former teacher of inappropriate sexual behavior — including “grooming” her from the time she was 12 years old up to their sexual encounters when she was 17 — and accuses the school of covering up the teacher’s actions and creating an environment that allowed it to continue.