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  Other Priests Named in Kane Settlement

By Robin Washington
Boston Herald
February 25, 2002

A Long Island monsignor who purchased real estate from the Rev. Thomas A. Kane before Kane filed for bankruptcy was named in a child molestation suit with him, the Herald has learned.

An Oct. 6, 1995, settlement of a lawsuit by Mark Barry of Uxbridge against Kane includes the "Reverend Monsignor Brendon Reardon" - a misspelling of Msgr. Brendan Riordan of St. Aloysius parish in Great Neck, N.Y. "I never saw the settlement agreement but that would probably be me," Riordan said yesterday, denying that he ever had sexual contact with Barry, whom he said he only met as an adult.

"In the course of the allegations he made against Kane, he was trying to suggest Kane was passing him around to other priests as a child. I absolutely never had anything to do with him sexually as a child or adult," Riordan said.

On Friday, the Herald reported from real estate records that Riordan purchased a Florida condo from Kane in a transaction recorded in 1992, about a year before Barry initiated his suit and two years before Kane's bankruptcy A second entry lists the sale date as 1988, but Riordan said the purchase was five years earlier. "I don't have any paper records but it had to be before 1983," he said, insisting the sale had nothing to do with Kane's bankruptcy.

Kane, who runs an English teachers school in Guadalajara, Mexico, and did not respond to e-mail requests for comment, also sold a Back Bay condo to longtime associate Babak Bagheral in January 1994, six months before filing bankruptcy.

The lawsuit, settled for $ 42,500, maintains Kane molested Barry while Kane was director of the now-defunct House of Affirmation in Whitinsville, a treatment center for priests suffering from pedophilia and other disorders. It also names the Revs. Thomas Teczar and Robert Shauris among "certain priests which (Barry) alleges . . . would entitle him to be compensated for alleged injuries or damages."

Teczar served as a priest in Fort Worth, Texas, after being suspended by the Worcester Diocese following a suit claiming he molested a child in the 1970s. Barry could not be reached for comment.

Houston attorney Dan Shea, a former seminarian who located Kane in Mexico after Worcester Diocese officials proclaimed him "missing," said the inclusion of multiple names in the settlement is significant enough to demand further investigation.

[Robin Washington may be reached at rwashington@bostonherald.com.]
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