El Paso Times
February 19, 2019
By Aaron Martinez and Trish Long
A man who claims he was repeatedly sexually abused by an El Paso priest in the early 1970s is suing the El Paso Catholic Diocese for more than $1 million in damages.
The suit, filed Feb. 12, claims the Rev. Jaime Madrid abused the then 12-year-old boy at at a local school, at the seminary, at a motel and in the priest’s car.
The victim, who is only identified in court records as John Doe, is represented by prominent Texas lawyers Lori Watson and Hal Browne.
“Obviously we are trying to get compensation for our client for all the trauma he suffered, …” Browne said. “We have been in several of these cases in El Paso … It has become clear to us that the Diocese had longtime institutional knowledge of the fact that there were abusive priests in the Diocese.”
El Paso Bishop Mark Seitz, who was named in the lawsuit but said he had not personally seen it, declined to comment on the suit, saying only that diocese’s lawyers had received it Friday and were still going through it.
Madrid, who died in 2007, was among the 30 priests named by the El Paso diocese as credibly accused of sexual abuse in a list released Jan. 31. The El Paso diocese list was part of a coordinated investigation by the dioceses in Texas in response to a nationwide scandal.
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