Civil suit targets NM priest over abuse

NEW MEXICO
Albuquerque Journal

May 15, 2018

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Since law enforcement never filed rape and molestation charges against former Catholic priest Sabine Griego, seven people who say they are victims of his sexual abuse are now taking up the mission of accountability in a civil lawsuit filed last week.

Documents released under court order by the Archdiocese of Santa Fe in a separate civil lawsuit show that by 2017 the archdiocese had reached settlement agreements with 32 New Mexicans who alleged that Griego sexually abused them as children. The Archdiocese faces dozens of suits regarding its role in covering up pedophile priest behavior.

This suit, filed May 9 in 4th District Court in Las Vegas by Albuquerque attorneys Brad Hall and Levi Monagle, targets Griego as an individual. It alleges he raped, abused and molested six male children and one female child at his home, in his car, at the churches he worked at and at his mother’s home in Las Vegas over decades.

The seven plaintiffs, now all New Mexico residents in their 50s, are in addition to victims identified by the church who were abused by Griego and by two other priests, Jason Sigler and Arthur Perrault, who have been named in dozens of civil lawsuits dating to the 1990s.

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