ALBANY (NY)
Times Union [Albany NY]
September 2, 2025
By Brendan J. Lyons
Dozens of people who allege they were sexually abused as children by priests and other employees of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany are scheduled to share their stories of what they endured and how it has affected their lives at a multi-day conference scheduled to begin Sept. 10 in U.S. Bankruptcy Court.
The extraordinary proceeding was scheduled by U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Robert E. Littlefield Jr. in response to a motion filed in June by the Official Committee of Tort Claimants, which represents the interests of hundreds of the sexual abuse survivors. The hearing is expected to last at least two days and Albany Bishop Edward B. Scharfenberger has indicated he will be in the courtroom for the testimonials.
The hearing is scheduled to take place as efforts to reach a global settlement with the diocese and its insurance carriers have languished since the bankruptcy case was filed two years ago.
Cynthia S. LaFave, an Albany-area attorney whose firm, along with Jeff Anderson & Associates, represents 190 plaintiffs who have pending claims against the Albany diocese, said the ability of the victims to have their voices heard in a courtroom is extremely important. Some of them will deliver their statements in-person while others are submitting written statements that will be read into the record.
“All of their lives the majority of these survivors have hidden the horrors that occurred in their childhood,” said LaFave, who is a member of the tort committee. “They have mostly never felt validated and many of them have felt such guilt over what happened to them. To be able to sit in a courtroom and tell what happened is incredibly difficult but also a relief for them. To sit in front of the bishop and other members of the priest family, the judge and fellow survivors is something that provides a great deal of healing for them.”
Earlier this year, in an effort to spur some movement in the settlement negotiations, Littlefield had issued an order allowing seven child sexual abuse lawsuits against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany to go to trial.
During the arguments ahead of that order, LaFave had noted that many of the victims are dying — or have died — as their cases were put on hold after the diocese filed for bankruptcy in 2023.
Littlefield said in January that in the prior 13 months the only thing the bankruptcy case had produced was “millions of dollars in professional fees.”
“It is getting somewhat frustrating that all I’m doing is approving fees. I’m not approving anything of substance,” the judge said at the time. “We’re just languishing on the sidelines. We need to jump-start the process, or the case is heading to failure.”
In the motion requesting the Sept. 10 proceeding to allow the victim-impact statements, the tort committee pointed out that many of the survivors have “waited decades to tell their stories” and often feel that it is more important than any monetary compensation.
“That opportunity has been unjustly denied to them for too long and has been prolonged by a bankruptcy case filed to address their claims, but into which they have minimal insight,” the tort committee wrote. “Allowing survivors to speak now will provide a small, but meaningful, measure of recognition and justice for the decades of isolation and pain they have endured and will result in the progress toward justice necessary to conclude this case.”
The diocese did not oppose the hearing, noting in its response that the Catholic organization “is not attempting to avoid responsibility or liability for the misconduct of diocesan clergy or the (diocese) itself for the damages caused to, and the faith lost by, those who were victimized by those within the church who took advantage of their unique positions as spiritual leaders to the detriment of the innocent, particularly children.”
LaFave said that for many of the victims it will be “incredibly hard for them to tell what happened … and what it has done to their lives, but in the end it is often as if a burden were lifted.”
In the state Supreme Court cases allowed by Littlefield to go forward, the first is scheduled to go to trial in October. Littlefield had issued his decision allowing those seven cases to go forward over the objections of attorneys for multiple insurance companies that hold policies for the diocese or its parishes and schools. They have argued that the mediation talks are progressing and normally take several years or more to produce a result.
Kathy Barrans, a spokeswoman for the diocese, issued a statement earlier this year saying the diocese “respects the court’s decision,” but does not believe it “will effectively aid in the mediation process to provide the greatest relief to the greatest number of claimants.”
Attorneys for the victims contend the mediation efforts have been slow, in part, because there have not been enough cases decided at trials to give the parties a more accurate picture of how much the victims should be compensated. Those attorneys said that several cases which were settled as the diocese threatened to file for bankruptcy more than two years ago did not establish that benchmark. They said those plaintiffs, some of whom were aging and in poor health, accepted deals out of fear they would otherwise get nothing.
The plaintiffs’ attorneys had noted in their arguments in favor of lifting the stay that a judge overseeing a bankruptcy case for the Buffalo diocese had issued a similar ruling allowing 17 claimants to go to trial to spur negotiations. That bankruptcy case has been pending for more than five years.
Last month, two insurance carriers for the Buffalo diocese agreed to pay more than $120 million to augment the $150 million that the diocese has agreed to pay roughly 900 surivors.
One of the cases that the Albany diocese settled prior to filing for bankruptcy was resolved in July 2022, when the church agreed to a $750,000 settlement with Stephen J. Mittler, a Saratoga County man who had been victimized as a child by a priest who was a serial sexual abuser.
Mittler’s lawsuit had been the first Child Victims Act case filed against the diocese to be scheduled for trial. His attorney said the diocese had threatened that it would file for bankruptcy before trial if the case went forward.
“Whether that was hyperbole or truth, my client opted to settle to avoid waiting for the bankruptcy to resolve itself, which could take years,” Mittler’s attorney, Matthew J. Kelly, said at the time.
The insurance companies often are the most difficult for the claimants to obtain settlements. In litigation against the Archdiocese of New York, an insurer has declined to indemnify the archdiocese on more than 1,000 child sexual abuse claims.
The Times Union reported more than a year ago that attorneys for Chubb Insurers, which reported more than $225 billion in assets and $57.5 billion of gross premiums written in 2023, had asserted in court filings that their companies “have no duty to provide insurance coverage” in many of these cases and that the Archdiocese of New York “alone must bear the full financial consequences of its criminal behavior.”
The Archdiocese of New York is affiliated with or operates dozens of churches, schools and other entities that are facing thousands of claims under both the Child Victims Act and the Adult Survivors Act. Those statutes temporarily lifted New York’s statute of limitations to allow survivors of abuse to file lawsuits against their abusers or the institutions that harbored them.
Chubb, which began issuing insurance policies to the Archdiocese of New York in 1956, says they do not cover damages for “bodily injury that the insured expected or intended.” In 1986, Chubb began adding sexual molestation exclusions in their excess policies (which extend the conditions of a pre-existing policy) and, in 1988, to their primary policies.