CASPER (WY)
Wyoming Tribune Eagle/WyomingNews.com [Cheyenne WY]
November 3, 2026
By Dylan Farrell Casper Star-Tribune Via Wyoming News Exchange
The Catholic Diocese of Cheyenne and Casper’s Our Lady of Fatima Church are denying responsibility for the alleged sexual abuse of three former parishioners who say they were assaulted as minors, pushing back against the claims shortly after a Natrona County judge largely rejected their effort to have the case dismissed.
In their responses, the diocese and church deny knowing about the alleged abuse, offering few admissions beyond basic employment details about church staff, including Doug Hudson, the youth minister accused of assaulting the plaintiffs.
Dallas Laird, the attorney representing the three plaintiffs, met with the Star-Tribune, but declined to discuss specifics of the ongoing case.
“The damage that’s done to these people, it’s unquantifiable,” Laird said.
Laird clarified at multiple points during the conversation that he was speaking generally about similar cases he has tried in the past, having represented both plaintiffs alleging abuse and clergy denying it.
The church also denies knowing that its then-co-pastor and eventual pastor, Pietro Phillip Colibraro, “was warned that Doug Hudson was plying adolescent males with alcohol,” according to the complaint.
Colibraro himself has a problematic history, as the church includes Colibraro among the litany of clergymen on its own webpage of “substantiated allegations.”
The church’s website does not specify the nature of the allegation against Colibraro, but dates the alleged abuse to 1965, more than 30 years before he became co-pastor at Our Lady of Fatima.
Most paragraphs relating to the factual basis of the plaintiffs’ claims begin with “defendants are without knowledge” of the allegation, including whether plaintiffs were involved directly with Hudson. In other places, the church and diocese confirm basic facts.
“Defendants admit only that Doug Hudson was employed by Our Lady of Fatima Church as a youth minister during certain relevant periods,” the church wrote in response to the claim of negligence. “Defendants expressly deny that any alleged sexual assault was committed with the course and scope of Hudson’s employment, duties, authority or agency relationship with the diocese or church.”
The church filed its response about two weeks after the judge ordered the dismissal of one charge of “breach of a fiduciary duty” alleged by the plaintiffs.
Hudson denied the abuse in a response of his own in May. Not long after, the church and diocese filed their motion to dismiss the charges against them, which carried on until the motion concluded in late September.
The allegations
Ryan Axlund, Anthony Jacobson and James Stress alleged in a March complaint that Hudson, the youth minister at Our Lady of Fatima, individually “plied [them] with alcohol” before sexually assaulting them at varying times between 1995 and 1997.
All three said they were minors when Hudson allegedly abused them.
Two accused Hudson of inviting them into his Casper home, which was provided by the church, getting them drunk and touching their genitals.
The third alleges that Hudson, who was his “personal counselor” and teacher at his Catholic school, got him drunk and “sodomized” him in a hotel while they were on “an off-campus overnight trip.”
All three request damages to cover “past and future mental pain and suffering and loss of enjoyment of life,” medical and counseling expenses, “past and future mental anguish,” exemplary damages and more.
Each plaintiff is seeking at least $50,000.01 in damages.
In their separate responses to the initial complaint, both the church and Hudson acknowledged his employment and that his housing was provided by the church, but offered few additional admissions.