LOS ANGELES (CA)
IOL (South Africa)
February 20 2014
By Alex Dobuzinskis
Los Angeles – Seventeen people who brought sexual abuse lawsuits against the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles have won a $13-million legal settlement, with most of the allegations involving a priest who left the country as an investigation got under way, attorneys said on Wednesday.
The settlement, reached last week, averted a trial that would have centred largely on abuse allegations against Father Nicolas Aguilar-Rivera, who in 1988 left his Los Angeles parish for Mexico as a probe was being mounted against him. His whereabouts are unknown.
Eleven men who said they were abused by Aguilar-Rivera as boys in the late 1980s were among the 17 people sharing the settlement. They will each receive an average of $1-million, with lesser amounts going to another six plaintiffs who accused other people working in the archdiocese of abuse, said attorneys who brought the lawsuits.
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