BRIDGEWATER (NJ)
Courier News
Dec. 6, 2019
ByNic k Muscavage
A former Metuchen Diocese priest who’s serving a life sentence in a Massachusetts prison for sex crimes against a child has been sued by a man who claims the priest sexually abused him when he was about 11 years old.
The lawsuit, filed on Monday in Superior Court in Middlesex County, details allegations against the now-defrocked Romano Ferraro while he was a priest at Our Lady of Mount Virgin in Middlesex and St. John Vianney in the Colonia section of Woodbridge.
In his lawsuit, the plaintiff, who lives in New Jersey and is identified only by his initials B.D.S., said he was raised in a devout Catholic family and attended Our Lady of Mount Virgin School.
He recalls Ferraro was brought to the school around 1984 or 1985 when B.D.S. was 11 or 12 years old. He was introduced to Ferraro by the priest of Our Lady of Mount Virgin, according to the lawsuit. Ferraro “took an interest” in B.D.S. and “gave him special treatment.”
Ferraro “groomed” B.D.S.’s family “to gain their trust,” according to the lawsuit. B.D.S. remembers Ferraro appearing at his family’s door around this time with snacks and staying into the evening to watch television and socialize with his family.
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