Search Results for: freeman

Buffalo priest. First named publicly as accused on the Diocese's list 3/20/2018. The list included deceased priests only if they have more than one allegation. Worked in the Erie diocese in the 1980s, in both NY and PA. Admitted to "violating children" in five of his six assignments. Treated twice at Southdown in Canada. Died in 2010. Worked at St. Mary of the Assumption church in Lancaster NY in 1987-1988. Named in the 8/14/2018 PA Grand Jury Report. Faculties revoked in 3/1989. Suit filed 4/30/2019. One alleged victim stated in 6/2019 that as a teen in the early 1980s he told then Msgr. - later Bishop - Trautman of abuse by Freeman, and that Trautman told him, "You should never have put yourself in that position." Freeman was kept in ministry. Named in a lawsuit in 8/2019. His accuser said that Freeman "brandished a .38 caliber pistol" during at least one abuse incident. A suit filed in 9/2019 alleged abuse at Sacred Heart in Niagara Falls of a boy for two years, beginning in when the boy was 15 in 1980. By 1/2020, Freeman was accused in lawsuits of the sexual abuse of at least seven minors.