MIDDLETOWN (NY)
Hoodline [San Francisco CA]
April 28, 2026
By Elise Hadley
New lawsuits are once again dragging the legacy of Father George Boxelaar into the light, accusing the late Carmelite priest of sexually abusing children around Middletown in Orange County hundreds of times over decades. Attorney Jim Monroe says eight more men have now filed claims under New York’s Child Victims Act, and investigators have identified roughly 14 other alleged victims. The complaints cover a period from the late 1960s through 1985, and one of the newly filed cases is slated for trial next month in Orange County civil court.
According to News 12, the suits name the Archdiocese of New York, the Carmelite Fathers and parishes where Boxelaar served as defendants. Monroe estimates the allegations add up to more than 4,500 incidents across the cases. The new complaints are described as separate from an earlier lawsuit brought by survivor Leonard Filipowski, which is still pending.
Filings with the Orange County Clerk include an e‑filed docket and attachments that reference a 1985 church letter stating criminal charges were dropped when Boxelaar retired and returned to the Netherlands. That filing was e‑filed April 2, 2026 and appears in the county’s Supreme Court records.
Before he was removed from ministry and sent back to the Netherlands, Boxelaar served at Holy Cross Church in South Centerville, the Our Lady of the Scapular mission in Unionville and Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Middletown. He died in 1990, according to archival records and reporting by BishopAccountability. Survivors have been speaking publicly about Boxelaar since the early 2000s, and Filipowski was among the first to bring a claim involving the priest under the Child Victims Act.
What the Lawsuits Say Happened
The complaints, as outlined by News 12, describe abuse that allegedly took place during parish activities and altar service at the churches where Boxelaar worked. The suits accuse church leaders of looking the other way instead of removing him from contact with children. Plaintiffs say the grooming and assaults followed a pattern that stretched for years and across multiple church sites in Orange County.
Legal Context and What Comes Next
The claims are being brought under New York’s Child Victims Act, the 2019 law that revived long‑stale civil cases and expanded the time window for survivors to sue, according to a legal explainer by the Zalkin Law Firm. The statute sparked a wave of litigation across the state and has contributed to large settlements in some dioceses. A recently reported $148 million agreement in the Albany diocese illustrates the scale of potential exposure for institutions facing similar claims. Plaintiffs’ attorneys say discovery in the upcoming Orange County trial could pull internal church records and witnesses into the open and shed light on what leaders knew and when.