ROCKVILLE CENTRE (NY)
LI Herald
November 2, 2017
By Ben Strack
Recalls alleged incidents as a teenager from 1983 to 1993
“He asked me if I could help him, and I said sure, that sounds innocent enough,” said a Rockville Centre man who claimed that he was sexually abused for 10 years by a priest at St. Agnes Cathedral.
“That’s how it began,” said the 48-year-old man, who asked the Herald not to reveal his identity, “and then it went from there to if I could go into the shower with him and help him so that he wouldn’t fall down.”
The man, who was raised Catholic in Rockville Centre and still lives in the village, was an altar boy for several years. In 1983, he met the Rev. John J. McGeever, who he claims abused him until McGeever died in 1993.
The man is being represented by Mitchell Garabedian, a Boston lawyer who has handled hundreds of sexual abuse cases and was portrayed in the Oscar-winning film “Spotlight,” about the Boston Globe’s exposé detailing abuse allegations against priests in Boston. The man filed his claims on Oct. 25, in an application as part of the Diocese of Rockville Centre’s Independent Reconciliation and Compensation Program.
The program, modeled after those created in the Archdiocese of New York and the Diocese of Brooklyn over the past year to help victims of abuse by priests and deacons gain some form of closure, launched last month. It is designed to grant financial settlements to victims who cannot file child sexual abuse lawsuits against the church due to New York’s statute of limitations.
“There isn’t any amount of money a sexual abuse victim wouldn’t exchange for not being sexually abused,” Garabedian told the Herald. “The monetary amount is only validation.”
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