ORLANDO (FL)
Florida Today [Viera FL]
May 30, 2025
By Tyler Vaszquez
- The lawsuit alleges that priest Father Robert Hoeffner sexually abused boys.
- One of the alleged victims, Shawn Teuber, is now suing the diocese and claims Hoeffner used confession to coerce him into sexual acts.
- Brandon Kapas killed Hoeffner, Hoeffner’s sister, and his own grandfather before being killed in a shootout with police in January 2024.
A lawsuit against the Orlando Diocese of the Catholic Church was filed by a Boca Raton law firm on May 30, alleging negligence was committed by a Brevard County priest who was murdered in January 2024.
Jeff Herman of Herman Law firm, which represents sexual abuse survivors, announced at a press conference in Orlando that he is filing the suit on behalf of an alleged survivor who was childhood friends with Brandon Kapas, the man who killed Robert “Father Bob” Hoeffner.
The lawsuit alleges negligence by the Diocese of Orlando and St. Joseph Catholic Church and St. Joseph Catholic School in Palm Bay. In the filing, made in the Ninth Judicial Circuit Court in Orange County, claims are made that Hoeffner was a “prolific sex abuser of children, particularly young boys” from the Palm Bay church.
The lawsuit seeks at least $25 million in damages.
Alleged victim Shawn Teuber, who was present for the press conference, disclosed to police at the time of the killings that he was a sexual abuse survivor, claiming that Hoeffner had targeted him from 2012 to 2014 when he was in seventh through ninth grades at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in Palm Bay. The church’s school is operated by the Diocese of Orlando.
FLORIDA TODAY has reached out to the Diocese of Orlando for comment. A spokesperson for the diocese told the Orlando Sentinel that the diocese “was not made aware of any allegations of abuse during Fr. Robert Hoeffner’s pastoral leadership, nor after he retired in 2016. We continue to pray for the Palm Bay and St. Joseph communities and all involved.”
Hoeffner, 76, who served for nearly two decades as a priest at St. Joseph’s before retiring in 2016, was killed along with his sister, Sally Hoeffner, 69, and William Kapas Sr., the grandfather of Brandon Kapas, 24, a former student at St. Joseph’s Catholic School.
“I really can’t sleep because I have nightmares. I have mood swings,” Teuber said at the press conference, held at Herman Law’s Orlando offices.
“I want to protect (people) and prevent anything that could happen like what happened with my friend.”
Herman said that others had been made aware at the time of suspicions related to Hoeffner. The lawsuit states that Hoeffner would routinely bring the boys to his home, which he shared with his sister and where further abuse took place.
The lawsuit further states that Sally Hoeffner facilitated meetings between her brother and the two boys in his bedroom.
‘He was not a violent person’
Attorneys now say that Hoeffner sexually abused Kapas along with his classmate, Teuber, who said he was in shock and disbelief when he heard about Hoeffner’s death.Get the News Alerts newsletter in your inbox.
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“He was not a violent person,” Teuber said of Kapas. “Just hearing that, I almost didn’t want to believe it. I thought it was not true until two weeks later.”
Teuber and Kapas, Teuber said, attended class together and would be invited to Hoeffner’s home where the abuse reportedly took place, in addition to abuse on the school grounds. Hoeffner allegedly used information the boys told him in confession to coerce them into sexual acts.
Hoeffner’s murder was discovered after Palm Bay police responded to a shooting near Emerson Drive on Jan. 28, 2024, where they engaged in an armed confrontation with Kapas. According to police reports, Kapas killed his 74-year-old grandfather, and had earlier killed Hoeffner and his 69-year-old sister, with whom he lived at the time.
After fatally shooting Hoeffner and the two other victims, Kapas engaged in a shootout with Palm Bay police officers, injuring two seriously, before being shot and killed himself.
Details later emerged stating that Kapas had been behaving erratically in the time leading up to the killings. Police reports indicate that there was suspicion of previous childhood sexual abuse of Kapas by Hoeffner.
Tyler Vazquez is the Brevard County Watchdog Reporter at FLORIDA TODAY. Contact Vazquez at 321-480-0854 or tvazquez@floridatoday.com. Twitter: @tyler_vazquez.