Archdiocese pays $1.5M for claims of sex abuse by HV priests

By Michael Randall
Times Herald-Record
June 7, 2017

http://www.recordonline.com/news/20170607/archdiocese-pays-15m-for-claims-of-sex-abuse-by-hv-priests

The Archdiocese of New York recently settled sexual abuse claims with seven men who said they were victimized as children by former Hudson Valley priests.

The priests included Francis Stinner, who taught at John S. Burke Catholic High School in Goshen from 1973 to 1980. He was laicized - removed from the priesthood - in 2005.

The archdiocese paid claims ranging from $150,000 to $350,000 each, totaling more than $1.5 million, to the seven men under the Independent Compensation and Reconciliation Program announced by Cardinal Timothy Dolan last October.

J. Michael Reck, the lawyer who represented the seven, said they agreed to disclose details including the identities of those they accused, “so other survivors still suffering in silence” might be encouraged to come forward.

The archdiocese agreed not to disclose any details of the settlements, but victims are free to speak, according to archdiocese spokesman Joseph Zwilling.

The compensation program is the only option for many abuse victims, since New York requires victims of child abuse to file a claim by age 23.

“It’s not full justice, but it’s some measure of justice,” Reck said.

A second phase of the program, for cases not previously reported, opened in March and was to end July 31, but now has been extended to Nov. 1, Zwilling said.

The compensation program is administered by noted mediator and lawyer Kenneth Feinberg and his colleague Camille Biros. They have complete autonomy and the archdiocese can’t appeal their decisions.

Reck did not disclose the identities of his clients, but said Stinner’s accuser was abused for more than 10 years in the 1970s and 1980s. After Burke Catholic, Stinner taught at John F. Kennedy High School in Somers from 1981 to 1989.

Besides Stinner, Reck’s clients said they were abused by former priests Gennaro Gentile, Peter Kihm and Ralph LaBelle, who all spent time in Dutchess County; John O’Keefe, president of Stepinac High School in White Plains from 1992-2004; and Richard Gorman, who spent most of his career in Manhattan and whose laicization case is still pending.