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	Sex-Abuse Suit Hits Nashville Diocese By Sheila Burke Tennessean [Nashville TN] September 8, 2006 http://tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060908/NEWS03/609080400/1017 A 29-year-old Nashville man who says a priest abused him when he was a boy sued the Diocese of Nashville on Thursday, and his lawyer promised a wave of lawsuits against the church here. The man, identified only as John Doe in court filings, is seeking more than $10 million. Church officials declined to comment on the lawsuit or on the church's handling of the former priest it names, a convicted child rapist who also was the subject of another lawsuit against the church. The plaintiff said Edward McKeown abused him from age 11 to 16. He accuses the church of a cover-up that let McKeown, a man known to the bishop as a serial pedophile, prey upon him. "The diocese had a duty to warn the families and protect the children," said Jeffrey Herman, one of the plaintiff's lawyers. Herman, of Miami, represents victims of clergy abuse around the country. Outside legal experts said Tennessee could be difficult because the statute of limitations, the deadline for filing the suit, may have expired. Herman disagrees. Nashville lawyer David Randolph Smith, a former Vanderbilt University law professor, said Tennessee's one-year statute of limitations for negligence lawsuits is the shortest in the nation. "Basically, the Catholic church has been able to avoid a large number of cases in Tennessee because of the statute of limitations," he said. But Herman says the statute hasn't expired, because the bishop hasn't come clean about McKeown and opened up the files on him. "I think he owes that to his flock, and he owes that to the community at large," Herman said. "But from a legal standpoint, until he does that, I think the statute of limitations" hasn't expired. The diocese declined to talk about the statute of limitations or any other element of the case. "Our attorneys have not yet had a chance to review the lawsuit, and it would not be appropriate to comment at this time," spokesman Rick Musacchio said. The suit claims that church officials knew McKeown was a serial pedophile when they moved him to St. Ignatius Church in Antioch but never warned the parish members. It was while McKeown was at St. Ignatius that the plaintiff says McKeown began abusing him. The suit says he was abused repeatedly from 1988 to 1993. McKeown is serving a 25-year prison sentence for raping a child after he was forced to leave the priesthood in 1989. Last year, the diocese paid an undisclosed amount to settle another lawsuit by two men who said McKeown had abused them. The crime for which Mc-Keown is in prison involved one of those victims. The difference in the suit filed Thursday is that Mc-Keown was still a priest when the abuse allegedly began. Court records from the previous lawsuit show that the diocese had sent McKeown to Maryland and Connecticut for evaluation and treatment for pedophilia. During evaluation he admitted to molesting boys on an average of once or twice a month.
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