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  Two Women Join Lawsuit against Religious Order

Associated Press State & Local Wire
July 21, 2004

Two women who claim they were sexually abused at an orphanage in Anchorage have joined a lawsuit against the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth.

Six women and one man sued last week, accusing the order of negligence for abuse they say they suffered from a priest and three nuns at the St. Thomas St. Vincent Orphanage.

The two new plaintiffs say they were abused in the 1950s and '60s.

Their attorney, William McMurry, filed the amended lawsuit in Jefferson Circuit Court Tuesday.

One of the new plaintiffs, Belinda Curl, said she was sexually abused in the 1960s by the Monsignor Herman J. Lammers, a now-deceased chaplain who also has been accused by six other women in the lawsuit.

Curl, like fellow plaintiff Dorothy Richardson, had named Lammers in a suit against the Archdiocese of Louisville, and they were among 243 plaintiffs who shared a $25.7 million settlement last year.

The other new plaintiff, Judy Knott, said she was sexually and physically abused by a Sister Camilla in the 1950s. The order confirmed that a nun named Sister Mary Camilla Donahue worked at the orphanage then.

Barbara Qualls, spokeswoman for the Sisters of Charity, said the order is reviewing the suit.

 
 

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