ALBANY (NY)
News Channel 13
June 13, 2019
For the first time ever, a 49-year-old father is going public with his story of alleged priest sex abuse decades earlier.
NewsChannel 13 exclusively obtained “complainant’s statements” submitted by Michael Harmon to the lawyers for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany, which confirmed it had forwarded to state prosecutors for review. According to Harmon’s statements, throughout his teenage years he was molested by a former priest in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany named Edward Pratt. Additionally, Harmon claims he was threatened with arrest when he went to the bishop at the time for help.
Now decades later, Harmon and others are starting to speak out as attorneys across New York State and beyond are preparing lawsuits under the recently passed Child Victims Act.
Mary DeTurris Poust, a spokeswoman for the Roman Catholic Diocese in Albany, told NewsChannel 13, “Edward Pratt was permanently removed from ministry by Bishop Howard J. Hubbard in 2002 following credible allegations of sexual abuse against minors. We continue to be horrified by reports of child sexual abuse, even years after the fact. We want to walk with survivors and try to help them bring some measure of healing to the scars we know can never be completely removed from their lives. Each time we have to revisit a story like this, we are angered and saddened anew by the way these survivors were robbed of their innocence and their childhoods, the way their families and their futures were ripped apart. Know that Bishop Edward Scharfenberger and the Diocese of Albany are actively working to do whatever we can to bring healing and justice to those who were sexually abused by clergy in this Diocese.”
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