OHIO
Vindicator
By LINDA M. LINONIS
linonis@vindy.com
YOUNGSTOWN
On behalf of Mary Ann Rivelle Kennedy of East Liverpool, who said she was sexually abused by a priest in November 1963, attorney Mitchell Garabedian of Boston is seeking a $1 million financial settlement from the Diocese of Youngstown.
Kennedy and Dr. Robert M. Hoatson, co-founder and president of Road to Recovery Inc., a nonprofit organization that serves survivors of sexual abuse and their families, conducted a press conference Tuesday at the Hampton Inn Youngstown, 4400 Belmont Ave., Liberty. Garabedian, who made comments by phone, is the lawyer who represented 11 men who received a settlement from the Youngstown Diocese because they were sex-abuse victims of Brother Stephen Baker, now deceased.
Kennedy said she was an eighth-grade student at Immaculate Conception School in Wellsville when she participated in a co-ed field trip to Chicago led by the parish priest at Immaculate Conception. The three girls, with a high-school-age female chaperone, and three boys, with an adult male chaperone who taught at the school, stayed at a Catholic school gym. Kennedy said “in the middle of the night, I felt someone’s hands penetrate me. I was scared to death. I told him to go away and leave me alone.”
Kennedy said the weekend trip was cut short and the group returned home. She also said the priest who had accosted her told her “not to tell anyone.”
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.