(NY)
NorthJersey.com [Woodland Park NJ]
August 7, 2025
By Deena Yellin
The Catholic Archdiocese of Newark has agreed to pay out two six-figure settlements to men who said they were sexually abused by Father Nicholas DiMarzio, who spent years as a priest in the North Jersey diocese before rising to serve as bishop in Camden and Brooklyn.
The settlements were announced at an Aug. 6 online news conference by Mitch Garabedian, an attorney who has represented numerous clergy abuse victims around the country.
The accusers — Mark Matzek, now 62, and Samir Tadros, 52 — say DiMarzio abused them in the 1970s when they were young children in two Jersey City parishes. Matzek said the abuse “stopped when the boy told his mother that he wanted to quit being an altar server,” said Garabedian.
DiMarzio, who retired as Brooklyn’s bishop in 2021, has steadfastly maintained his innocence. Both he and the Newark Archdiocese noted that an investigation by the Archdiocese of New York had found no “semblance of truth” in the allegations. The settlements included no admissions of guilt or liability, DiMarzio said in a statement.
“As I have said from the very beginning, in my 50+ year priesthood, I never abused anyone. I was the subject of an exhaustive two-year canonical investigation that cleared me. I took a lie detector test and passed it. I did not authorize these settlements because I did not abuse anyone.”
In another statement, Newark Archdiocese spokeswoman Maria Margiotta said the archdiocese “chose to settle the lawsuits to avoid the costs of litigation and help bring resolution to painful matters for everyone involved.”
Garabedian characterized the agreements as “six-figure” settlements, but neither he nor the archdiocese would disclose specific terms.
Bishop DiMarzio’s accusers
Matzek, who still lives in New Jersey, said he was a 12-year-old altar boy at St. Nicholas Parish in Jersey City from 1973 to 1976 when DiMarzio and a second priest, Albert Mark, assaulted him repeatedly. Mark is now deceased.
Tadros, now living in Florida, said DiMarzio sexually abused him from 1979 to 1980, beginning when he was 6. The abuse allegedly occurred at the Holy Rosary Parish in Jersey City, where Tadros went for private religious lessons, and in his home, when the priest visited his family.
“I’ve been dealing with this my entire childhood and my adult life; I think of it every single day,” Tadros said during the news conference. “It affects my relationships, my everyday life, it affected my marriages. I was not able to go into the field I wanted. I didn’t have any desire in my marriage. I didn’t want to be touched.
“The memories stayed with me,” he said. “I think of it even when I’m having lunch or paying the bills or just sitting in my car. It runs through my head: If this happened to me, how many other people are out there who haven’t spoken out?”
The two men filed lawsuits that have both been dismissed as a result of their settlements, Garabedian said. The agreements do not contain any admission of guilt or an apology, but, given the size of the payments, “that denial rings hollow,” the attorney said.
“These cases are evidence that the Catholic Church is morally corrupt from top to bottom for allowing children to be sexually abused,” Garabedian said.
The Vatican should remove DiMarzio from the College of Bishops and the priesthood, he added.
The Vatican’s investigation
In a written statement to The Record and NorthJersey.com, DiMarzio’s attorney, Joseph Hayden, said his client has “categorically and unequivocally denied the allegations in the civil suit. Indeed, he was the subject of a full canonical investigation, which interviewed all the parties and found no ‘semblance of truth’ as to these allegations.”
The investigation was ordered by the Vatican and conducted in 2020 and 2021 by “independent firms headed by a former federal prosecutor and former FBI director,” Hayden said.
Margiotta, the Archdiocese of Newark spokeswoman, confirmed the two settlements and emphasized they were “not an admission of fact or liability.”
“Although the Archdiocese of Newark was aware of the independent investigation conducted by the Archdiocese of New York, which found the allegations against Bishop DiMarzio ‘not to have the semblance of truth,'” officials decided it was best to bring the case to a conclusion,” she continued.
“The Archdiocese remains fully committed to protecting the faithful. All allegations of abuse are promptly reported to law enforcement, and prevention efforts continue through education, training and strict safeguarding protocols,” Margiotta said. “We continue to work with survivors, their legal representatives, and law enforcement to address past abuse with a focus on healing, accountability, transparency and the ongoing safety of our community.”
DiMarzio’s history
DiMarzio was most recently the bishop of the Brooklyn Diocese when he resigned in 2021 at the age of 77, having passed the church’s customary retirement age of 75.
Timeline: Key dates in NJ’s legal fight over investigating clergy sex abuse scandal
DiMarzio served as the auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Newark from 1996 to 1999 and was appointed the bishop of Camden in 1999. In 2003, he was installed as the bishop of Brooklyn, where he helped settle a scandal over the sexual abuse of children by priests by arranging payments of nearly $900,000 to 23 plaintiffs. The diocese fought lawsuits by others who refused to settle out of court.
In 2019, Pope Francis chose DiMarzio to lead an investigation of abuse allegations in the Buffalo Diocese, where Bishop Richard Malone faced accusations of a cover-up.
Under DiMarzio’s tenure, the Brooklyn Diocese in 2019 released the names of more than 100 priests who had been credibly accused of child sexual abuse.
“For their suffering, I am truly sorry,” he said at the time. “I have met with many victims who have told me that more than anything, they want an acknowledgement of what was done to them.”