FLORIDA
Sun Sentinel
By James D. Davis, Staff writer
6:44 p.m. EDT, October 23, 2012
A 34-year-old man filed suit Tuesday against the Archdiocese of Miami, saying a priest molested him when he was a teenager living in Hollywood.
In the lawsuit, Tony Simmons alleges that the Rev. Rolando Garcia initiated a sexual relationship with him around 1994, when Garcia was at Little Flower Church in Hollywood and Simmons was a 16-year-old runaway. The document names the alleged victim only as John Doe No. 95, but Simmons identified himself as the plaintiff in a phone talk brokered by his attorney, Jeff Herman.
“I’ve got a daughter and a boy that’s coming,” said Simmons, who lives in Charlottesville, Va. “I don’t want this to happen to anyone else.”
Garcia is currently pastor at St. Agatha Catholic Church in Miami. The archdiocese’s communication office declined direct comment on the case, instead emailing a brief statement: “Mr. Herman has filed several lawsuits against the Archdiocese of Miami involving Father Garcia, and yet to date, none have been proven credible.”
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