LOUISIANA/MASSACHUSETTS
The Times-Picayune
By Andrea Shaw, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune
on November 05, 2014
A former Roman Catholic priest who taught at a Marrero school in the 1970s has settled a lawsuit alleging that he later sexually abused a 14-year-old student student in Boston, the former student’s attorney said Wednesday. Sean Leo Rooney served on the faculty at Archbishop Shaw High School from 1975 until 1979.
The lawyer, Mitchell Garabedian of Boston, said the former student disclosed Rooney’s abuse in August 2012. The acts occurred in Boston and New York. Rooney was a teacher at Goshen Junior Seminary in New York from 1979 through 1981, where he befriended the boy and encouraged the youth’s interest in photography, Garabedian said.
The student, now 48, said Rooney fondled and masturbated him while traveling on a bus for a school trip in Massachusetts. Rooney also was accused of removing the boy’s clothes, touching his buttocks and genitals and masturbating on the victim while at the seminary in New York, according to the lawsuit.
Garabedian said the case was settled for “six figures.” The student also suffered abuse by two other priests, the attorney said.
The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests announced the settlement Wednesday and asked the Archdiocese of New Orleans to issue a public call for information about anyone who may have been harmed by Rooney. The settlement also was published on the BishopAccountability.org website.
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