BOSTON (MA)
Boston Globe
By Bob Hohler
Globe Staff / October 2, 2012
Some of them are strangers to Fenway Park, faces from a distant past. But they continue to come forward, pouring out memories of sexual abuse they say they suffered at the hands of a trusted Red Sox supervisor.
The toll of men who claim they were violated as youths by the team’s late clubhouse manager Donald J. Fitzpatrick has grown again, with a former Kansas City clubhouse attendant, Gerald Armstrong, alleging that Fitzpatrick repeatedly molested him in the late 1960s amid the worst sexual abuse scandal in Major League Baseball history.
With Armstrong’s allegations, there are now 20 men demanding a combined $100 million — $5 million each — from the Sox for misconduct they claim Fitzpatrick committed from the 1960s until he left the team in 1991. …
Because the statute of limitations has expired on nearly all the recent cases, the Sox have no legal obligation in the matter. But numerous entities, including the Roman Catholic Church, have paid settlements to alleged victims who lacked legal standing.
“The Red Sox have a moral obligation to resolve these cases,’’ said Mitchell Garabedian, who won tens of millions of dollars for victims in the church scandal and represents the 20 men suing the Sox. “Resolving these cases will help the victims at least partially heal and maybe gain a degree of closure in regard to these awful matters.’’
Garabedian said he is investigating an additional claim against Fitzpatrick. He said another man dropped his claim because the process proved too emotionally painful.
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