MINNESOTA
KMSP
ST. PAUL, Minn. (KMSP) –
A Minnesota man filed a lawsuit Tuesday against St. John’s Abbey, the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis and the St. Luke Institute, alleging they should have known the priest who abused him was a sexual predator.
The lawsuit claims Rev. Fran Hoefgen sexually abused the victim between 1989 and 1993, when he was 10 to 13 years old. The alleged abuse occurred during Rev. Hoefgen’s tenure at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Catholic Church in Hastings, Minn.
The lawsuit alleges the defendants should have known Hoefgen was a danger to children because he sexually abused another boy at the St. Boniface School in Cold Spring, Minn. in 1983.
Hoefgen confessed to the St. Boniface abuse in a signed statement to police, but was never charged. Instead, the priest was sent to the St. Luke Institute for mental health evaluation, then returned ministry.
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