Settlement Reached In Connecticut Priest Abuse Case

 By John Christoffersen

Associated Press

STAMFORD (AP) — A former altar boy who claimed he was molested by a priest reached a financial settlement of his lawsuit against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Bridgeport, his attorneys and church officials said Tuesday.

The plaintiff, known in court documents as John Doe, said he was molested at age 14 by the Rev John Castaldo in the early 1990s when Castaldo was a priest at St Teresa Church in Trumbull. His name and the terms of the settlement were not released at his request, said his attorneys, Ernest Teitell and Paul Slager.

Castaldo served in 1998-99 as a parochial vicar in Newtown.

The settlement means New York Cardinal Edward Egan will not have to testify next week, the attorneys said. Egan, who was the Bridgeport bishop when the alleged assaults occurred, had received a subpoena that required him to provide sworn videotaped testimony about his knowledge of the case.

“We hope that this settlement will allow our client to find some closure,” said Teitell. “While no amount of money can make him whole for what happened, the financial settlement here is substantial and demonstrates that the diocese is accepting responsibility. Our client hopes that the information gathered by the many depositions taken in this case will put the diocese on notice so that corrective measures can be taken to prevent this from happening again.”

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) praised the alleged victim for filing the lawsuit and criticized church officials.

“We caution Catholics against reading more into this settlement than they should,” SNAP said in a statement. “Sadly, it is most likely a business decision by the church lawyers and accountants, designed in part to prevent evidence of cover-ups from being presented in open court.”

The Diocese of Bridgeport confirmed that a settlement has been reached in the case.

“This legal settlement is the right thing to do,” said Bridgeport Bishop William E. Lori. “We agree that the resolution of this case is a part of the healing process, and hope that this young man will find closure and reconciliation.”

Lori said the diocese is in the forefront of responding to abuse allegations and that church officials received no complaints of sexual misconduct by Castaldo until May 2001, when Castaldo was arrested in a separate case and was removed immediately.

The diocese earlier had reached multimillion-dollar settlements of other abuse cases.

The case was settled after two days of jury selection.

Robert Golger, a lawyer for Castaldo, declined to comment Tuesday.

In motions filed in court, Teitell and Slager said Castaldo had been ordained by the Bridgeport Diocese despite its prior knowledge of numerous irregularities in Castaldo’s background. They said Castaldo had two disturbing psychological assessments that noted he “was fearful of his own aggressive drives,” had “difficulty accepting his own sexual urges and desires as normal,” and was preoccupied with his “unresolved sexual urges.”

Before ordaining Castaldo, the Bridgeport Diocese also knew Castaldo had been expelled from his seminary for “remarkably bizarre behavior,” and that the president-rector of the seminary had warned officials of the Bridgeport Diocese in 1985, two years before Castaldo was ordained, that Castaldo was not fit to become a priest, the attorneys said.

Egan’s spokesman has denied he ignored warning signs.

“There was no indication whatsoever that this priest was engaging in any kind of inappropriate behavior,” Joseph Zwilling, spokesman for the Archdiocese of New York, said last week.

Castaldo was a spiritual adviser to Trinity Catholic High School in Stamford and a priest at St Maurice Parish in Stamford in the late 1990s. He was removed from both posts in May 2001 after he was arrested on charges of engaging in a sexually explicit online chat with someone he believed was a 14-year-old boy.

Castaldo pleaded guilty in 2001 to a felony charge of attempted dissemination of indecent material to a minor and was sentenced to one weekend in jail and five years of probation.

In his deposition in the civil case, Castaldo admitted his conviction was the result of a “sickness” he had, and that he had the same sickness throughout the entire time he served as a priest, according to court papers.