WASHINGTON
Wenatchee World
By Jefferson Robbins
World staff writer
Saturday, February 16, 2013
YAKIMA — A lawsuit that claimed sexual abuse by a Waterville Catholic priest was dismissed last week for lack of evidence.
The complaint said the plaintiff, called only “S.A.” in the court file, was sexually abused multiple times while a child between 1972 and 1974 by the Rev. Joseph Graaf, then the priest of St. Joseph Catholic Church in Waterville.
But the 2010 suit was dismissed Feb. 6 on the motion of the Diocese of Yakima, the defendant, which successfully argued that there was insufficient evidence to allow the claim to go to trial.
Yakima Superior Court Judge Robert E. Lawrence-Berrey agreed there was no evidence the diocese knew or should have known that Graaff presented a risk of abuse; or that the diocese created circumstances that allowed the claimed abuse to occur.
“Whether the abuse happened or not has never been established either,” diocesan spokesman the Rev. Robert Siler said Friday. “I suppose that would have been something that would have been up to a jury to decide, if there had been enough evidence to proceed to a trial.”
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