FLORIDA
News 13

By Amanda McKenzie, Reporter
Last Updated: Wednesday, August 13, 2014

ORLANDO —
A 52-year-old Orange County man has filed a legal complaint against the Catholic Diocese of Orlando, claiming he was sexually abused by a priest in Seminole County over 35 years ago.

The victim’s 13-page complaint, dated Monday, details years of sexual abuse at the hands of Father William Authenrieth, then an associate pastor at All Souls Catholic Church in Sanford, where the plaintiff served as an altar boy.

According to the plaintiff, identified only as “GS Doe” in the complaint to protect his privacy, the alleged abuse took place between January 1976 and July 1978, while he was in sixth- to eighth-grade. The incidents happened in the church’s sacristy and the priest’s living quarters.

The complaint said Father Authenrieth convinced the victim that “sexual contact between a child and a priest was…