Judge Approves LA Archdiocese Clergy Sex Abuse settlement

[Extracts]
by Gillian Flaccus, San Francisco Chronicle
Monday, July 16, 2007

[The following extracts from the San Francisco Chronicle article relate to timeless and typical episodes in the child abuse saga.

(1) Steve Sanchez is the brother of Billy Sanchez. The latter told the Los Angeles Times in 2005 that in 2001, while trying to discover the source of his personal problems he had "suddenly remembered" being abused by by a priest.

(2) Mary Ferrell blames another priest for her lifetime battling with alcoholism and drug abuse.

(3) The lawyers for the alleged abuse victims can expect to receive up to 40% of the settlement money for their good work i.e about 264 million dollars.

We don't really have "Recovered Memory" in Ireland but, apart from that, everything is terribly familiar

Rory Connor
16 July 2007]


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Dozens of the alleged victims gathered outside the courthouse to talk about the settlement.

"I hope that I'm no longer an 'alleged' victim, 660 million should take that alleged off," said Steve Sanchez. "Cardinal Mahony got off cheap today."

Mary Ferrell said she was abused for two years beginning in 1956 by a priest at Mary Star of the Sea parish in San Pedro. Ferrell said she never imagined she would be talking about it in a public square.

"When I was 7, I didn't tell anyone," she said. "I didn't know what he'd done to me and I didn't have the terms. I was totally alone and I carried it with me for all these years."

Ferrell said because of the abuse she has spent a lifetime battling with alcoholism and drug abuse.

"I isolate myself because it's the only place I feel safe. Having met all these other victims it's like they're my brothers and sisters," she said..............

The deal settles all 508 cases that remained against the archdiocese, which also paid $60 million in December to settle 45 cases that weren't covered by sexual abuse insurance.

The archdiocese will pay $250 million, insurance carriers will pay a combined $227 million and several religious orders will chip in $60 million. The remaining $123 million will come from litigation with religious orders that chose not to participate in the deal, with the archdiocese guaranteeing resolution of those 80 to 100 cases within five years, Hennigan said. The archdiocese is released from liability in those claims, said Tod Tamberg, church spokesman.

Plaintiffs' attorneys can expect to receive up to 40 percent of the settlement money ? or $264 million ? for their work.