MINNESOTA
Pioneer Press
By Emily Gurnon
egurnon@pioneerpress.com
POSTED: 06/17/2014
A Minnesota man befriended by a priest when he delivered newspapers to the church rectory as a boy has sued the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis and the Diocese of New Ulm alleging sexual abuse.
The plaintiff in the lawsuit, identified as John Doe 109, said that the Rev. William J. Marks of St. John’s Church in Hector, Minn., sexually abused him in the 1950s.
His family was poor, and Marks would pay the boy for oral sex and other sexual acts, the plaintiff claimed in the suit filed Tuesday in Ramsey County District Court.
“Fr. Marks was pretty free with them $20 bills,” he is quoted as saying in the lawsuit. Marks would also take the boy out to eat at a restaurant where the boy’s mother worked, leaving her big tips.
“Plaintiff’s mother thought Fr. Marks was the ‘nicest guy in the world,’ ” and believed she could trust him, according to the lawsuit.
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