SEATTLE (WA)
Patch
By Greg Johnston
The Archdiocese of Seattle has settled a child sexual abuse lawsuit that had been scheduled for trial on Monday allegedly involving a former youth minister at Kirkland’s St. John Vianney Church.
The victim’s attorney, Michael T. Pfau, issued a news release about the settlement, for $635,000, on Thursday, and the archdiocese confirmed it for Kirkland Patch.
The news release said the victim, identified only by his initials, D.E., was sexually abused in the mid-1980s by the youth minister, and claimed the archdiocese hired the youth minister without a proper background check. It said a proper check would probably have found similar involvement with youth previously in New Orleans and “multiple concerns about boundary issues with children. One of them rejected him from being a campus minister because of those concerns.”
The youth minister was identified in the release as Jim Funnell, and the archdiocese confirmed that he did work at St. John Vianney in the mid-80s. The release said Funnell later was charged and pleaded guilty to a charge of child abuse
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.