NEWARK (NJ)
NJ TV News
July 22, 2020
By Michael Hill
A state lawsuit accuses the defrocked Cardinal Theodore McCarrick of a running a sex ring.
“All of it cloaked in papal power,” said Jeff Anderson, the plaintiff’s attorney.
The suit alleges McCarrick began molesting young altar servers and seminarians in 1969, and in the 1980s he allegedly got plenty of help from other men of the cloth — some deceased and some credibly accused.
The lawsuit details what a then-11-year-old, unidentified boy says took place. The suit refers to him as “Doe 14” and it alleges Father Anthony Nardino sexually abused the boy at church. The principal of Essex Catholic High School, the now-deceased Brother Andrew Hewitt, did as well, and groomed him and introduced him to McCarrick when the boy’s family had financial trouble paying tuition.
“Brother Hewitt became the procurer,” Anderson said.
Allegedly for McCarrick and trips to McCarrick’s beach house in Sea Girt, which was paid for by the Metuchen Diocese. It’s where McCarrick assigned where priests and boys would sleep.
“In the night, with the assistance of others, McCarrick would creep into this kid’s bed and engage in criminal sexual assault of him, whispering ‘It is OK,’” Anderson said.
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