MINNESOTA
Pioneer Press

By TOM OLSEN / FORUM NEWS SERVICE

May 11, 2016

DULUTH, Minn. — Mike Finnegan describes the Rev. J. Vincent Fitzgerald as “one of the worst predators” he’s seen in his career as an attorney and advocate for victims of child sexual abuse.

Fitzgerald had already been accused of sexual misconduct when he arrived in northeastern Minnesota in the early 1960s, according to documents publicly released Wednesday. Allegations continued over the next 20-plus years, much of which time he spent working at parishes throughout the Diocese of Duluth. Fitzgerald died in 2009.

Finnegan, who works in the St. Paul law firm of Jeff Anderson & Associates, now represents 17 people who say they were abused by the priest, but the attorney said there are likely dozens of additional victims who have yet to come forward.

“This perpetrator was known since 1963 to have been abusing kids,”…