BELLEVILLE (IL)
News Democrat
Oct. 7, 2019
By Lexi Cortes
The recent civil lawsuit alleging a boy was sexually abused by a Belleville priest in the ’80s was filed 18 years too late to seek damages for the trauma he says he suffered, the Belleville Diocese’s attorneys are arguing in court.
The now 38-year-old man filed his complaint July 19 in St. Clair County Circuit Court, within today’s statute of limitations: 20 years after his 18th birthday or 20 years after realizing he was harmed by past abuse, if he repressed the memories, for example.
But the diocese says his complaint should instead be subject to the law as it was in 1999, when the man turned 18. At that time, the statute of limitations expired within two years.
The man, who filed under the pseudonym John Doe, alleged the Rev. Joseph Schwaegel sexually abused him when he was between 6 and 8 years old and a student at Cathedral Grade School in Belleville.
At the time, Schwaegel was the school’s superintendent and in charge of the diocese’s largest parish, Belleville’s St. Peter’s Cathedral. He would call Doe and other students out of class to be alone with him, and the lawsuit states that is when the priest abused Doe.
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