US:One of the largest court awards ever made against a Catholic diocese in a sex abuse case is not to be appealed. Last Friday a US jury awarded $11.45 million (€8.52 million) to two young people abused over three years by a lay youth worker in the New York diocese of Rockville Centre between 1999 and 2002.
The award was made following seven days deliberation by a Nassau County jury of four men and two women, most believed to be Catholic, after a three-week hearing at the State supreme court.
At weekend Masses in churches throughout Rockville Centre diocese, the sixth-largest in the US, a statement from Bishop William Murphy was read, announcing that there would be no appeal.
"To appeal the case would just delay any healing, and that needs to take place right now," a spokesman for the diocese said. "We need closure and to try to heal as a diocese and as a parish."
The victims - a young woman (now 23) and a young man (now 22) - testified they suffered anxiety, depression, flashbacks, nightmares and difficulties in their careers and relationships as a result of being raped and sodomised by youth minister Matthew Maiello.
Now 33, Maiello pleaded guilty in 2003 to raping and sodomising four minors, including the two who sued successfully. He has served two years in prison.
The jury also ruled that the defendants - the diocese, St Raphael's Catholic Church in East Meadow and its pastor Fr Thomas Haggerty - had acted "with reckless disregard for the safety of others in the negligent hiring and retention" of Maiello. That means the church defendants are responsible for the award, as Maiello does not have any assets.
Witnesses told the court that Fr Haggerty hired the youth minister even though he knew Maiello had "boundary" and "touching" issues and after a former supervisor at another church said he could not give him a positive recommendation.
Witnesses said Fr Haggerty ignored the advice of the parish business manager against the hiring and did not heed complaints about Maiello's conduct once he was hired.
The jury awarded $2.5 million to each victim for injuries and suffering to date, as well as $250,000 annually to the young woman for the next 12 years, and $115,000 annually to the young man for the next 30 years. Her total will be $5.5 million and his $5.95 million.
The diocese, comprising 1.4 million Catholics in Nassau and Suffolk counties, is one of the wealthiest in the US. It was the subject of a damning grand jury report in 2003 which found that years of sexual abuse complaints had been ignored and covered up.
Last week's was the first abuse case against the Catholic Church in New York State, and one of the few in the US, to go to a jury verdict.
The Catholic Church in the US has paid out over $1.5 billion in sex abuse settlements to date.
