SOUTH DAKOTA/MINNESOTA
Argus Leader
Written by
John Hult
The movement by church officials of a deceased friar accused of molesting children in South Dakota and Minnesota has resulted in a lawsuit under a recently passed law that extends the statute of limitations in latent abuse cases.
The case against James Vincent Fitzgerald was made possible by the passage this year of the Minnesota Child Victims Act, according to Twin Cities lawyer Jeff Anderson.
Anderson represents a victim of Fitzgerald’s, who is identified as “Doe 19” in a lawsuit filed Thursday in Ramsey County against the Diocese of Crookston and the Oblates of Mary Immaculate.
“It opens up the courthouse for victims to bring actions against the ones who permitted the abuses,” Anderson said, adding the Doe case represents the first claim made under the new Minnesota law.
Fitzgerald abused two Native American children in the late 1960s when working at the Indian Mission in Sisseton under the scope of the Catholic Diocese of Sioux Falls, the complaint said, and was transferred to Squaw Lake, Minn., in the 1970s.
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