CONNECTICUT
The Connecticut Law Tribune
Isaac Avilucea, The Connecticut Law Tribune
In the 1990s and early 2000s, the Roman Catholic Church was rocked by allegations of rampant sexual abuse by priests. Since then, millions of dollars have been paid in settlements to victims. Now a string of lawsuits against Jehovah’s Witnesses shows sex abuse problems may be nondenominational.
Four accusers are suing East Spanish Congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses New Haven and the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York, saying they were sexually assaulted by Orlando Afanador, who held a leadership position in the New Haven congregation for five years starting in 1988.
The four lawsuits were filed by siblings Sybelle Almodovar, Evelyn Selimaj and Ferdinand Almodovar, and another woman, Bianca Martinez. The suits trace Afanador’s ascension in the church, detail the Witnesses’ internal hierarchy, and describe practices the plaintiffs say prevented followers from going outside the church to report abuse and that allegedly allowed Afanador’s actions to go unchecked for years. (In 2010, Afanador was criminally convicted of sexually assaulting a Nebraska boy.)
The Connecticut plaintiffs are represented by attorneys Thomas McNamara, of McNamara & Goodwin in New Haven, and Irwin Zalkwin, of San Diego, who plan to pursue the cases in state court. McNamara said church leaders got around legal obligations to report suspected sexual abuse to authorities by loosely asserting priest-penitent privilege, which protects pastoral communications that take place in confessionals. The problem, McNamara said, is church officials “stretched” application of the privilege to the point that “everything is confidential.”
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.