PROVIDENCE (RI)
Miami Herald
BY MICHELLE R. SMITH
ASSOCIATED PRESS
PROVIDENCE, R.I. — A late Yale University professor’s family should be allowed to sue the disgraced Roman Catholic order the Legion of Christ over a more than $1 million bequest, a federal magistrate judge in Rhode Island recommended.
The retired mechanical engineering professor, James Boa-Teh Chu, was living in East Providence, R.I., before he died in 2009. His son, Paul Chu, sued in U.S. District Court in Providence in 2012, saying his father was coerced, defrauded and deceived into signing over many of his assets to the Legion.
Among the allegations made in the lawsuit, Chu says members of the order convinced his devout father that the Legion’s founder, the late Rev. Marcial Maciel, was a saint, even as the church was investigating allegations against him including sex abuse. The Vatican took over the order in 2010 and Pope Benedict XVI ordered a wholesale reform.
The Legion has denied the lawsuit’s allegations, saying everything was handled appropriately and that it doesn’t pressure anyone to make a contribution. It asked to dismiss the lawsuit, arguing Paul Chu, executor of his father’s estate and his only child, does not have standing to sue.
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