CONNECTICUT
CT Now
By DAVE ALTIMARI
3:24 p.m. EDT, September 22, 2014
Archdiocese of Hartford attorneys used the case of Kennedy cousin Michael Skakel to argue Monday before the state Supreme Court that a revision to a state law that lengthened the time a sexual-abuse accuser can file a lawsuit should be overturned.
Wesley Horton told the panel of seven justices that Skakel’s case, which came before the court a few years ago, was a relevant example of the church’s issue with the state law.
“Remember the Skakel case where this court said you can’t apply a statute of limitations retroactively after it has expired because it impacts the defendants rights,” Horton told the justices.
The diocese is appealing a $1 million jury verdict from last February in which the accuser, identified in court papers as Jacob Doe, testified that he and another friend were repeatedly sexually assaulted by the Rev. Ivan Ferguson and a friend of the priest from 1981-1983. The diocese also wants the court to overturn the verdict.
The victim was allowed to file that lawsuit because in 2002 the state legislature voted to extend the statute of limitations for civil cases on sexual assault claims to 30 years from when a complainant reaches 18. It had first been amended in 1991 to 17 years. The 2002 change was retroactive. …
Attorney Hugh D. Hughes, who represented Jacob Doe, said the jury was entitled to hear that the church had failed to supervise Ferguson.
“The defendant in effect crossed their fingers and looked the other way,” Hughes said. “They understood from Day 1 the seriousness of this issue and turned a blind eye.”
The diocese was first made aware of Ferguson’s abuse by a phone call in 1979. At the time, Ferguson was a teacher at Northwest Catholic High School in West Hartford.
At the trial, testimony showed that when former Archbishop John F. Whealon confronted him about the 1979 allegation, Ferguson admitted to the abuse. Ferguson was sent to a treatment facility in Massachusetts. Two years later, Whealon appointed Ferguson priest director of a Derby school.
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