FLORIDA
Miami Florida
BY JAY WEAVER
JWEAVER@MIAMIHERALD.COM
Now in their mid-20s, the three Miami-Dade men shared a common bond: They were raised in the Catholic Church, played competitive sports and graduated from Monsignor Edward Pace High School.
And it was on the Miami Gardens campus, they say, that the dean of students, Marist brother Ken Ward, sexually assaulted them again and again.
One of the men also claims that the school’s supervisory principal, the Rev. Gustavo Miyares, had sexually abused him in the late 1990s when he was enrolled at Immaculate Conception Catholic School.
On Monday the men, identified only as “John Doe M, A and B,” sued the Archdiocese of Miami and both schools, as well as Ward and Miyares, for monetary damages, accusing the archdiocese of negligence and a cover-up. What sets the men’s claims apart from dozens of other clergy sex-abuse cases filed against the archdiocese over the past decade is the lengthy period of the alleged battery and its relatively recent history.
According to the men’s suit, Ward was in charge of discipline at Pace and repeatedly brought the minor boys into his office, “locking the door, snapping the blinds closed, and forcing them to take their clothes off and participate in sexual conduct, while Ward masturbated both himself and the young boys.”
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