PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Magazine
May 3, 2019
By Victor Fiorillo
Mitchell Garabedian is easily one of the world’s most well-known attorneys when it comes to suing men accused of sexual abuse.
Garabedian was the lawyer at the center of the notorious Boston clergy abuse scandal — Stanley Tucci played him in the Oscar-winning movie Spotlight — and reportedly obtained a large settlement on behalf of 86 people who claimed they had been abused by one particular Boston priest. He’s called the Catholic church a “corrupt criminal entity” and has said that Catholic priests have “been raping kids at a wholesale pace for centuries.”
When a woman came forward in 2017 with accusations that actor Kevin Spacey had sexually abused her underaged son, it was Garabedian who was sitting next to her at the press conference.
And the horrific Boy Scouts sexual abuse story that broke recently? Garabedian is representing more than 25 accusers, and he’s been all over the news for that.
But now Garabedian finds himself the target of a lawsuit filed by prominent Center City lawyer Jim Beasley on behalf of a Hill School employee who says that Garabedian ruined his reputation by asserting false sexual abuse claims made by a former student. That employee, whose identity is not revealed in the John Doe lawsuit, is currently on leave, says a Hill School spokesperson. Garabedian did not comment for this story.
According to the lawsuit, filed in Philadelphia’s federal court, the employee in question has held a number of positions at the Hill School over the last 25 years, including coach, dorm parent, administrator and teacher. He “earned and maintained the highest esteem, respect and gratitude of his supervisors, colleagues, students and alumni,” reads the suit.
But that all changed in 2018.
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