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  Texas Diocese Settles Priest Abuse Suit

Tri-City Herald
February 15, 2008

http://www.tri-cityherald.com/916/story/92188.html

FORT WORTH, Texas The Catholic Diocese of Fort Worth has settled another lawsuit alleging abuse by a priest now serving prison time for raping a boy, church officials said Friday.

The plaintiff, whose name was not released, said he also was abused by the Rev. Thomas Teczar, who was a visiting priest in the Fort Worth diocese in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The diocese declined to disclose the settlement amount.

Last year in Eastland, Teczar was convicted of aggravated sexual assault of a child and indecency with a child involving incidents with an 11-year-old boy in 1990. He was sentenced to 25 years in prison. A few months later, the diocese reached an undisclosed settlement with three men who said they were raped by Teczar.

In 2005, the diocese settled lawsuits for $4.15 million with two of Teczar's accusers, including one who filed the criminal complaint in Eastland, about 90 miles west of Fort Worth.

Teczar served as a priest in the Worcester, Mass., diocese until he was kicked out in 1986 for misconduct with boys. He moved to the Fort Worth diocese in 1988 but returned to Massachusetts in 1993 when other sexual abuse allegations surfaced in Texas, diocese officials have said.

The Rev. Kevin Vann, bishop of the Fort Worth diocese, is working with Worcester diocese officials to have Teczar defrocked. He is no longer in active ministry.

The disclosure of the most recent settlement came a day after the Fort Worth diocese said a former priest accused of sexually abusing minors in Texas and Rhode Island, the Rev. Philip A. Magaldi, is HIV positive.

 
 

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