BishopAccountability.org
 
  Davenport Diocese Gets Hit with Another Lawsuit

By Courtney Brennan
WQAD
September 21, 2006

http://www.wqad.com/Global/story.asp?S=5436597&nav=1sW7

Davenport, Iowa - Just two days after losing a 1.5 million dollar lawsuit ... the Davenport Diocese is in court again. It faces more allegations of sexual abuse at the hands of its priests. This time, Michael Gould, is accusing Bishop Soens of sexually abusing him while he was the principal at Regina High School.

Today, the school's lawyer argued that Regina should be dropped from the suit because Soens answered to and was supervised by the diocese while he was Regina's principal.

Gould accuses Fr. Soens, who is now a retired bishop of the Sioux City Diocese, of sexually abusing him from 1959 to 1967. Gould says Soens molested, pinched and inappropriately touched him in the principal's office during school hours.

Gould's lawyer says 18 men and one woman will testify at trial that they saw and or heard about Soens behavior. Gould and other students say that school staff members saw some of the alleged abuse. Gould's lawyer also says that a priest called Soens' alleged abuse of students - "the big secret in Iowa City."

The lawyer for Regina High School says no adults ever learned about the abuse or saw the abuse go on. This is the original lawsuit against Bishop Soens, a second lawsuit has been filed by 13 former students alleging similar abuse.

 
 

Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.