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  Northbrook Priest Drops Suit against Accuser's Parents

By Lou Ortiz
Chicago Sun-Times
November 5, 1994

A Northbrook priest who was vindicated of charges he sexually abused a 7-year-old boy is dropping his countersuit against the child's parents.

"He's had enough litigation to last a lifetime," lawyer Arlene C. Erlebacher said Friday about her client, the Rev. Robert J. Lutz of St. Norbert Parish in Northbrook.

"He's happy to be done with this," said Erlebacher.

Erlebacher said Lutz, 69, and the boy's parents, known in court documents as John and Jane Doe, have reached an unspecified settlement. She said she was filing a motion in Circuit Court on Friday to dismiss the priest's suit.

But former elementary school principal Alice Halpin, who was charged in the civil lawsuit along with Lutz and who also was acquitted, plans to proceed with her lawsuit against the Does, said Halpin's lawyer, Patricia Bobb.

Bobb said a civil trial is scheduled against the Does on Nov. 14. The suit accuses the Does of defamation, invasion of privacy and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

The Does filed their suit in 1989 against Halpin and Lutz. They alleged their son, who is now 13, was abused between September, 1987, and June, 1988, when he attended the school.

A jury found Halpin and Lutz innocent of the allegations on June 29.

Halpin, 49, a former nun, left St. Norbert in 1991 because "the stress was too much" and now teaches at an Roman Catholic school in Chicago.
 
 

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