CONNECTICUT
Republican-Amercan
BY PAUL SINGLEY REPUBLICAN-AMERICAN
The Achdiocese of Hartford has agreed to pay $500,000 to settle sexual abuse allegations against a Roman Catholic priest who served at parishes in the Naugatuck Valley.
The settlement was reached two weeks before the case was to go to trial.
William Dotson, now 39, filed allegations of sexual abuse against the Rev. Stephen Bzdyra that stemmed from when Dotson served as an altar boy between 1985 and 1990, when Bzdyra was a priest.
Dotson, one of at least three people to file sexual abuse claims against Bzdyra, said the priest forced him to perform multiple sexual acts when he was an altar boy between 1985 and 1990 at St. Hedwig in Naugatuck, St. Francis in New Haven, and at a house in New Haven that Bzdyra owned.
Dotson’s New Haven-based attorney Joel T. Faxon said the church removed Bzdyra from the priesthood when the lawsuit was filed.
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