Catholic Diocese of Portland Sued by Six Men over Alleged Sexual Abuse Decades Ago

By Hilary Sargent
Boston.com
January 5, 2016

http://www.boston.com/news/local/maine/2016/01/05/catholic-diocese-portland-sued-six-men-over-alleged-sexual-abuse-decades-ago/MKTRboO9duh08dBNejxhtI/story.html

Six men who say they were sexually abused by a Catholic priest decades ago have filed civil lawsuits against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland, according to the Portland Press Herald.

The men are represented by Mitchell Garabedian, the Boston attorney who has worked for many victims of sexual abuse by Catholic priests, as well as Bangor attorney Brett Baber, the Press Herald reports.

The individual lawsuits were filed on November 20.

According to the Press Herald, which obtained copies of the complaints, the men say they were abused by Reverend James P. Vallely, who is now deceased, over a 19-year period beginning in 1958.

The six men were all altar boys, between the ages of 8 and 15, during the time the abuse allegedly occurred, the Press Herald reported.

Garabedian told the paper that the archdiocese had been aware that Vallely was a pedophile as early as 1956.