$3.15 million settlement reached in Archdiocese sex abuse lawsuit

CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Tribune

By Deanese Williams-Harris
Tribune reporter
1:30 p.m. CST, January 30, 2014

A $3.15 million settlement has been reached in a sexual abuse claim of a victim who said he was abused by the then-Rev. Daniel McCormack, who pleaded guilty in 2007 to multiple counts of criminal sexual assault.

The victim filed the lawsuit in 2010 against the Archdiocese of Chicago and Cardinal Francis George alleging that both failed to remove McCormack and allowed him access to children despite complaints that he had sexually abused minors, according to a news release from the victim’s attorneys.

McCormack, who has since been defrocked, was arrested and charged with multiple counts of criminal sexual abuse in 2006 and later pleaded guilty to the crimes. McCormick was sentenced to five years in prison, and remains confined while a petition to keep him committed to state custody under the Sexually Violent Persons Commitment Act is considered by a Cook County judge.

The victim in the suit said McCormack abused him while he was in eighth grade in 2002 at Our Lady of the West Side Catholic School. The abuse continued while he was in a junior and senior playing in a basketball league for McCormack, who pastor at St. Agatha’s Parish and also a basketball coach, according to the complaint, according to the lawsuit.

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