CONNECTICUT
The Hartford Courant
By DAVE ALTIMARI, daltimar@courant.com
The Hartford Courant
5:29 p.m. EDT, September 13, 2012
HARTFORD ——
A New London woman who says she was molested as a child by a now-deceased priest will receive $1.1 million from the Roman Catholic Diocese of Norwich after a retiring Superior Court judge spent his last day on the bench mediating the settlement.
Mary Maynard revealed her identity in court Thursday. She had charged that she was abused by the Rev. Thomas Shea in 1976 when he was pastor at St. Joseph’s Church in New London.
Her lawsuit alleged that diocese officials, including former Bishop Daniel Patrick Reilly, knew that Shea had a history of abuse allegations and moved him from parish to parish. …
As word spread in the courtroom Thursday that a settlement had been reached, Maynard turned to face Reilly, who was sitting no more than 5 feet away at the defense table.
“Shame on you,” she said to Reilly, who did not respond and was quickly led out of court.
“Through this whole process he’s been sitting there laughing and I just couldn’t understand that,” Maynard said. “He never apologized.”
Reilly was at Superior Court in Hartford preparing to testify as the first witness in what was scheduled to be at least a two-week trial when word filtered out of Judge Carl Schuman’s chambers that a settlement was afoot. …
Maynard said she was abused in 1976. Reilly was the bishop at that time. Reardon was planning to introduce hundreds of church documents that showed Reilly and others knew that Shea had been accused of abusing girls for many years yet installed him in a parish that had a girls’ school.
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