CHICAGO (IL)
Chicago Tribune
By Meredith Rodriguez
Tribune reporter
9:49 p.m. CST, February 18, 2014
Three unidentified young men who say they were abused by Daniel McCormack, a defrocked Catholic priest who in 2007 pleaded guilty to several counts of criminal sexual assault, each filed separate lawsuits Tuesday in Cook County Circuit Court.
The suits named the Catholic bishop of Chicago, the Archdiocese of Chicago and Cardinal Francis George. It claims that they were negligent in allowing McCormack, who as of last month was confined in a mental health facility after his guilty plea, to work with young boys unsupervised when they knew or should have known that he had a history of sexually abusing minors.
“The case is against the church for allowing him to be in the presence of young children when they knew he had had a propensity to try to take liberties with young boys,” said their lawyer, Richard Levin.
All three plaintiffs were members of the basketball team at Our Lady of the Westside School and were abused by McCormack at different times spanning 2000 to 2005, Levin said. A $3.15 million settlement was announced in January involving a sex-abuse victim who said McCormack abused him in 2002 at the same school.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.