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…