WYOMING
Billings Gazette
By TOM MORTON Casper Star-Tribune | Posted: Monday, March 19, 2012
CASPER, Wyo. — The defendants in a federal civil lawsuit have denied a woman’s allegations that a deacon at St. Anthony’s Catholic Church in Casper imposed a sexual relationship on her, according to court documents filed last week. An attorney for the Diocese of Cheyenne also asserts the court cannot involve itself in the church’s personnel policies because of the First Amendment, and should dismiss the lawsuit.
Kathy Seeley, who now lives in Colorado, claimed the Rev. Michael Carr in 2002 referred her for grief counseling from Deacon Don Stewart, whose “vicious physical assaults and physical sexual relationship” caused physical and emotional damage, according to her complaint filed on Jan. 17.
The lawsuit also names two priests and two former bishops of the Diocese of Cheyenne.
“The other named defendants knew or should have known of this inappropriate and meretricious sexual relationship imposed upon plaintiff by Defendant Stewart in the course and scope of his employment,” according to the complaint filed by her attorneys, Traci Mears of Casper and William Fix of Jackson.
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