BishopAccountability.org

Two lawsuits settle SLU abuse allegations

By Robert Patrick
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
January 6, 2016

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/two-lawsuits-settle-slu-abuse-allegations/article_9ddcd298-9ee3-552c-8728-9b4846bfedd0.html

Students walk across the St. Louis University campus near the clock tower on Oct. 19, 2012.
Photo by Christian Gooden

ST. LOUIS • Two women who sued a former St. Louis University president over abuse allegations — including one who also claimed that officials violated an agreement to bar him from teaching — have settled their cases for a total of $282,000, an activist group said Wednesday.

One suit claimed that the Rev. Daniel C. O’Connell sexually abused a student in 1983, while she was studying overseas and he was a chaplain. Both were associated with Loyola University Chicago at the time.

In 2003, she received a $181,000 settlement that included, among other things, promises that he would not teach again at a Jesuit institution and that he be barred from public ministry, according to the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.

She sued in 2013, claiming Jesuit officials violated that agreement by allowing O’Connell to teach and speak at universities and engage in public ministry in Germany. Lawyers for O’Connell and Jesuit officials denied the allegations.

That suit settled for $82,000, a statement from SNAP says.

The other suit, filed in 2012 against O’Connell and SLU, claimed that O’Connell sexually abused a female SLU student in the late 1960s during a counseling session to deal with her “hang ups and intimacy issues with men.”

Lawyers for SLU and O’Connell denied those allegations. The trial was scheduled for later this year, but the suit was settled for $200,000, SNAP said.

The organization said that the suit alleging a breach of the settlement agreement was only the second of its kind, and called for others who have settled to aggressively review whether agreements they made were being followed.

O’Connell’s lawyers could not be reached for comment. He was SLU’s president from 1974-1978.

A lawyer for the Jesuits referred questions to a Jesuit spokeswoman, who supplied a statement that reads in part: “In resolving the cases through mediation, it was our goal to provide an opportunity for and assistance with healing. We understand that it is important for us to respond compassionately and in a timely way whenever anyone brings forward an allegation against any of our members.”

The statement also says that the Jesuits have “policies and educational programs in place to ensure that all of our members are trained in maintaining professional boundaries,” and “All Jesuit institutions continue to work diligently to ensure each is a safe environment.”

 

Contact: rpatrick@post-dispatch.com




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