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	Diocese Says It Will Not Appeal Sex Abuse Lawsuit Associated Press, carried in WCBS [New York] May 19, 2007 http://wcbstv.com/topstories/local_story_139235442.html Melville, N.Y. The nation's sixth-largest Catholic diocese said Saturday it would not appeal a jury's verdict that found it negligent in a case involving a youth minister who sexually abused two teenagers in his care over several years. "To appeal the case would just delay any healing, and that needs to take place right now," Sean Dolan, a spokesman for the Diocese of Rockville Centre on Long Island, told Newsday. "We need closure and to try to heal as a diocese and as a parish." Dolan said that the diocese would inform its parishes of the verdict and the decision not to appeal so they can tell their parishioners during Mass, Newsday said on its Web site. He said the goal was to be as transparent as possible. An organization that represents survivors of sexual abuse by priests applauded the decision by the diocese to not appeal. "I'm glad that they're not appealing," said Timothy Echausse, director of the Long Island Chapter of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. "It does show that they have some mercy and some compassion." A jury on Friday found the Diocese of Rockville Centre and a church parish negligent in the hiring and retention of the youth minister who carried out the abuse, awarding the two victims a combined $11.4 million in damages. The jury cleared the defendants of being negligent in the supervision of the minister. An attorney representing the pastor, the parish and the diocese, insisted that youth minister Matthew Maiello alone was responsible for the sexual abuse. Maiello served more than two years in prison after pleading guilty to third-degree rape and sodomy in 2003, admitting he abused four children. He now lives in Connecticut. Given that Maiello did not contest the allegations against him, the month long civil trial focused on St. Raphael's Church in East Meadow, its pastor, the Rev. Thomas Haggerty, and the Diocese of Rockville Centre. The six-person jury reached its decision after deliberating over eight days. The jury awarded the female victim about $5.5 million in damages and a second, male victim about $5.9 million.
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