Clergy and Child Sexual Abuse

Clergy abuse occurs when a member of the clergy such as a priest, minister, seminarian or other religious person takes advantage of his position of influence and respect to commit a sexual crime.  Church organizations, such as Catholic Dioceses, have concealed incidents of sexual abuse and moved pedophile priests from parish to parish in the past.  Only recently have these organizations come forward to recognize and resolve their past cover-ups and try to heal the damage caused to children and their parents.

Sexual abuse of children occurs frequently when a perpetrator is employed in a position of trust or leadership such as a doctor, teacher, coach, or youth counselor.  The victim may be compensated for the wrongdoing and others can be prevented from suffering future harm from the perpetrator.

We have actively pursued sexual abuse cases and have achieved the following results:

Clergy Sexual Abuse – $17,050,000

After three weeks of trial in Oakland, California in 2003, we concluded what was then the largest California court settlement for a single victim of sexual molestation by a Catholic priest.  Our client was a 15 year old altar boy in 1979 and 1980 when he was sexually molested by his pastor.  Evidence was introduced at trial showing multiple molestations by several priests of the Oakland Diocese.  Although the pastor had denied molesting the boy in his deposition, we were able to obtain an admission of molestation during his testimony at trial.  The Alameda County jury was shown multiple instances of molestation by other Oakland Diocese priests as a pattern of conduct that had been continuously ignored by the church.

Clergy Sexual Abuse – $8,200,000

We represented five different women who had been sexually molested by Steven Kiesle, a Catholic priest in Fremont, California, when the girls were 8 to 11 years old during the years 1969 to 1972.  Steven Kiesle had admitted molesting many children and bragged that he was the “pied piper” to children.  He said that he tried to molest every child he sat on his lap.  When asked how many children he had molested over the years, he answered “tons.”  We held the Oakland Diocese responsible for continually allowing Kiesle to be a priest when they had evidence he had been inappropriately touching children.