MINNESOTA
Bemidji Pioneer

By Forum News Service

DULUTH, Minn. — An alleged victim of childhood sexual abuse from a priest has reached a settlement with the priest’s former diocese.

Doe 19, who filed a lawsuit claiming Father James Vincent Fitzgerald had abused them in 1984 while working in the Diocese of Crookston, has accepted a settlement deal with the diocese and the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, according to a press release.

Mike Finnegan, attorney for Doe 19, will publicly release documents from the oblate on Fitzgerald Wednesday at 11 a.m. in Duluth. The documents were used last year in a trial last year involving Fitzgerald’s abuse of Bill Weis. Weis was awarded more than $8 million by a Ramsey County jury after it found Fitzgerald abused Weis in Squaw Lake in 1978.