Fairfield University, Religious Charities Agree to $60 Million Settlement for 133 Children Sexually Abused at Haitian School

By Nicholas Rondinone
Hartford Courant
January 25, 2019

https://cour.at/2My9AIv

Eight years after Douglas Perlitz was sent to prison for using school, shelter and food to get boys to perform sexual acts, an attorney for the 133 victims said they struck a $60 million settlement with Fairfield University and other religious charities that supported Perlitz’s charity for homeless boys in Haiti while ignoring signs of the widespread abuse.

The homeless boys, some now men, were abused in the late 1990s and early 2000s while living at a school run by Project Pierre Toussaint, a school created by Perlitz, a 1997 graduate of Fairfield University. One lawsuit includes a claim that one of the victims, a minor, was sexually abused by another person involved with the school, but that individual has not been charged criminally.

“This settlement is life changing for my clients. As you know, Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere,” said Mitchell Garabedian, a Boston-based attorney representing the boys. “The victims were homeless without food, without clothing and without medicine... They are sick and have been sick. They are starving for the longest period. This is life changing.”

Garabedian said they have asked a federal judge in Connecticut to consider creating a class-action lawsuit and then approving the settlement fund already agreed upon by the school and charities, including the Order of Malta, Haiti Fund Inc. and the Society of Jesus of New England. The class-action lawsuit would encompass 51 current lawsuits and 82 claims vetted by attorneys, Garabedian said.