KANSAS CITY (MO)
Fox 4
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A former Kansas City, Missouri, resident has filed a lawsuit against the Kansas City-St. Joseph Catholic Diocese claiming that a now-deceased priest sexually abused him over 45 years ago.
In the lawsuit filed on Thursday, the plaintiff – identified only as John Doe, F.A., and now a resident of Florida – claims that Father Jerry Wegenek abused him when he was 11-year-old between 1966 and 1967. The alleged victim says that this was a case of repressed memory, and didn’t remember the alleged abuse until 2010.
Father Wegenek, who died last year and had never been named in a sexual abuse lawsuit, was assigned to St. Gabriel’s and St. Patrick’s parishes during the time of the alleged abuse.
In a statement, the Diocese said that Wegenek was removed from ministry in June of 1994 following an allegation of sexual misconduct with a teenage boy in the 1970′s, but they had not received any allegation of sexual misconduct by him prior to 1994.
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