BOSTON (MA)
Boston University Collegian Alumni Magazine
Summer 2017
By Lara Ehrlich
A Boston lawyer crusades against clergy sex abuse—as told by clients and colleagues, survivors and Secret Files
In 2002, Boston attorney Mitchell Garabedian represented 86 people who claimed to have been molested or raped as children by John J. Geoghan, a Catholic priest from Dorchester, Mass. The case led to a $10 million settlement for Garabedian’s clients, and to a Boston Globe Spotlight team investigation that exposed an international epidemic of abuse and cover-up extending all the way to the Vatican. Garabedian (’71, CAS’73) has since represented more than 1,000 victims in 14 countries, and he still gets more than 20 calls a month from alleged victims seeking his help.
The Globe investigation was rewarded with a Pulitzer Prize, and became the subject of the 2015 Academy Award–winning film Spotlight. Actor Stanley Tucci portrays Garabedian in the film with such intensity, the Boston attorney says, that many reporters are now terrified of meeting with him.
People who know him don’t disavow that intensity, but they say there are other sides to the sometimes fearsome lawyer, who grew up on a farm in Methuen, Mass. He is witty, and he is generous, a trait inherited from his father, whose farmhands often came to him for advice. His family attended an Armenian Apostolic church every Sunday.
“It was a very peaceful, kind way to live,” says Garabedian, whose Boston office, piled high with boxes and papers, is just around the corner from Faneuil Hall, where his family once sold vegetables grown on their farm.
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.