CONNECTICUT
CT Post
Michael P. Mayko
Updated 1:02 am, Tuesday, July 2, 2013
HARTFORD — Two dozen Haitian boys will each receive $500,000 in a settlement on their claims of sexual abuse at the hands of Douglas Perlitz while enrolled in Project Pierre Toussaint, a residential trade school in Cap-Haitien.
“This settlement will be a life-changing event for them,” said Mitchell Garabedian, a Boston lawyer who headed the legal team representing the boys. “It will allow them to feed themselves and their families, buy clothes, sleep with a roof over their heads and obtain medical treatment.”
Garabedian said arrangements have been made to provide financial counseling, but the money will be distributed immediately in a lump sum.
The payments are part of a $12 million settlement reached Friday with Fairfield University; the Rev. Paul Carrier, a former university chaplain and officer of the Haiti Fund, the now defunct fund-raising arm of Project Pierre Toussaint; the Society of Jesus of New England, the Jesuit order to which Carrier belonged; the Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of St. John of Jerusalem of Rhodes and of Malta, American Association, USA, of which Carrier was Magistral chaplain; and Hope Carter, a member of the board of directors of the Haiti Fund, a New Canaan philanthropist and Malta member.
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