CONNECTICUT
The Hartford Courant
By DAVE ALTIMARI, daltimar@courant.com
The Hartford Courant
7:17 p.m. EST, January 26, 2012
WATERBURY -—
They were 8th-grade altar boys at St. Mary’s Church in Derby, best buddies since grammar school, mesmorized by “Father Ivan” who treated them like adults and offered sleepovers at the rectory.
Now they are together again, both suing the Roman Catholic Diocese of Hartford for transferring a known pedophile priest to their school only months after he finished “treatment” in Massachusetts.
The case of Jacob Doe entered its third day in Waterbury Superior Court Thursday. The plaintiff and his childhood friend, known as Matthew Doe in court papers, testified before a six-member jury.
In sometimes very emotional testimony the men, now in their mid-40’s, told similar stories. They met the late Rev. Ivan Ferguson when he began working at the school affiliated with the St. Mary the Immaculate Conception Church in Derby. Both boys were altar boys and testified they immediately liked Ferguson when he showed up there in 1980.
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