$5M lawsuit: Boy scolded, spanked by own grandmother for revealing priest's sex abuses

By Haidee V. Eugenio
Pacific Daily News
December 27, 2018

https://www.guampdn.com/story/news/2018/12/27/lawsuit-boy-scolded-grandmother-revealing-priests-sex-abuses/2412955002/

Father Zoilo Camacho, pastor of Santa Barbara Church, as photographed April 25, 1987.

A boy confided in his own grandmother on several occasions that a priest at San Vicente and San Roque Church in Barrigada was sexually abusing him, only to be scolded, spanked and told to stop spreading lies about the clergy in the early 1970s, according to a lawsuit filed on Wednesday in local court.

The plaintiff, identified in court documents only as B.C.D. to protect his privacy, said Father Zoilo Camacho sexually abused him for about six months around 1972 to 1973.

The abuses and molestation included rape, and happened once or twice weekly, according to the $5 million lawsuit.

The boy was about 9 or 10 years old at the time, the complaint says.

B.C.D., represented by Attorney David Lujan, said on several occasions, he told his grandmother about Camacho's sexual abuses.

But, according to the lawsuit, the grandmother scolded, spanked and lectured him that a priest was "God's representative and not capable of such actions."

The lawsuit says the grandmother also told the boy to "stop spreading such lies."

The lawsuit also says that B.C.D. resorted to illegal drugs such as LSD, marijuana, heroin, cocaine and "ice" to deal with the pain caused by the priest.

"To this day, plaintiff is incapable of having a normal relationship with any woman due to his inability to consider himself a man worthy of a woman's love and admiration. To this day, plaintiff remains a tortured soul," the complaint says.

B.C.D., according to the lawsuit, considered the news of Camacho's death as the happiest moment of his life. Camacho died around September 2007 at age 87, the lawsuit says.

Named defendants in the lawsuit include the Archdiocese of Agana, the Capuchin Franciscans, the School Sisters of Notre Dame, Milwaukee Province Inc., San Vicente Catholic School.

The archdiocese plans to file a reorganization bankruptcy to help settle nearly 200 clergy sex abuse lawsuits filed against it since 2016.