CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Tribune
By Manya Brachear
Tribune reporter
4:13 p.m. CDT, May 21, 2013
Lawyers for six plaintiffs on Tuesday announced a $19.6 million settlement of a lawsuit against the Chicago Province of the Society of Jesus involving allegations of sex abuse by now-defrocked Jesuit priest Donald McGuire.
Lawyers said the settlement not only recovers damages for the abuse, but also the efforts to cover it up, mislead authorities and move McGuire from place to place instead of removing him from ministry. Evidence of those efforts came to light in documents extracted during civil litigation in Cook County Circuit Court — documents that Jesuits denied prosecutors when McGuire was on trial in Wisconsin for molesting two students from Loyola Academy in Wilmette during trips near Lake Geneva in the 1960s, lawyers said. He was later convicted.
When the documents surfaced in 2011, the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests asked Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez to launch a grand jury investigation into the Chicago-based Jesuit province. Instead, lawyers for the six plaintiffs sought punitive damages.
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