NEW YORK (NY)
New York Post
August 14, 2019
By Priscilla DeGregory, Elizabeth Rosner and Lia Eustachewich
Hundreds of lawsuits hit state courts across New York on Wednesday, the first day the new Child Victims Act was in effect — with the majority of complaints targeting the Catholic Church.
“Today is a new day. It’s a day of hope,” said attorney Jeff Anderson at a press conference. “It’s a day in which . . . the survivors have an opportunity to not only have a voice but have their voice heard and through a public forum.”
One of Anderson’s clients, Jordan Caramanno, was a 16-year-old junior at St. Joseph by-the-Sea High School on Staten Island when he was allegedly molested by Monsignor John Paddack.
Paddack, he said, then tried to use his powerful position to silence the then-teen. “That was a very dark time in my life,” Caramanno said of the alleged abuse that occurred in 2001 and 2002. But Caramanno, 34, had a message for his alleged abuser, “You can’t run and hide anymore.”
He, like many others is suing the Archdiocese of New York, as well as St. Joseph by-the-Sea. Reached by phone, Paddack slammed Caramanno’s accusations as “totally false. Totally 100% false.”
Fifteen CVA suits naming three previously unnamed abusers were also filed on behalf of some 170 alleged child sex abuse survivors by the law firm Seeger Weiss LLP.
“Survivors will no longer be silenced,” said Stephen Weiss.
The CVA opened up a one-year window for survivors to file civil actions against abusers, regardless of how long ago the incident happened. Such claims were previously barred under the state’s statute of limitations.
Lex Filipowski, 54, filed his suit some 44 years after his alleged abuse stopped.
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