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  Judge Dismisses Wyo Man's Suit against Priest

Casper Star Tribune
May 20, 2006

http://www.casperstartribune.net/articles/2006/05/20/news/wyoming/703aaecd04ebd66d87257172007d7177.txt

Omaha, Neb. (AP) - A Douglas County judge has dismissed a Wyoming man's sexual abuse lawsuit against Girls and Boys Town and a priest who had worked there.

The plaintiff, Darren Boudreau of Cheyenne, said in his lawsuit that the Rev. Richard Colbert had molested him several times when Boudreau was a student at the home for troubled youths from 1985 to 1989.

Colbert, now assigned to a Missouri diocese, had denied the allegations.

The lawsuit named Girls and Boys Town as a defendant, alleging it knew -- or should have known -- what Colbert was doing and should have better supervised him.

The lawsuit said Boudreau suffered from a mental disorder that had kept him from suing.

His original attorney withdrew from the case, and Boudreau had filed for bankruptcy before filing the lawsuit.

Because Boudreau failed to hire another attorney or proceed on his own, District Judge J. Patrick Mullen dismissed the lawsuit this week.

Attorneys for Colbert and Boys Town said they found no proof of Boudreau's allegations.

Judges now have thrown out all but two of five sex-abuse lawsuits against Boys Town, which changed its name to Girls and Boys Town in 2000.

Diocesan officials in Jefferson City didn't immediately return a phone call Thursday. The diocese had suspended Colbert from his duties, pending resolution of the lawsuit, which was filed in late September.

The diocese has said Colbert served from 1977 to 1979 in Sedalia, from 1988 to 1992 in Pilot Grove and from 1993 to 1995 at St. Joseph Cathedral in Jefferson City before being assigned to a Fayette parish in 1995 and Warsaw in 1999.

An advocacy group, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said Colbert also had worked at the Society of the Precious Blood seminary in Liberty, as well as in Linton, N.D., and Collegeville, Minn., in the 1970s before going to Nebraska City, Neb., and then Omaha in the early 1980s.

 
 

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