An Orange County trial regarding the sexual abuse of children by a local priest who died in 1990 is on pause as the Archdiocese of New York, who is a defendant in the case, agreed to recommend an $800 million settlement with multiple survivors under the Child Victims Act.
The Goshen trial related to multiple years of sexual abuse by Carmelite priest Rev. George Boxelaar, which involved multiple victims, was set to begin in May.
“And they (multiple cases) got stayed because the liaison committee, on which we’re one of the firms, have been negotiating with the archdiocese,” said Jeff Anderson, attorney at Jeff Anderson and Associates, which represents over 200 survivors, “to reach a resolution after six years of hard-fought litigation. And the resolution is a proposal by the Archdiocese of New York to settle all the pending claims, over 1,300 in number.”
The new development puts a stay, a pause for 60 days, on all related cases.
The case, scheduled to be heard by Justice Brett Broge in Orange County Supreme Court, was the first of eight planned trials representing eight men who were allegedly sexually abused by Boxelaar while they were altar boys or students at the Our Lady of The Scapular Mission Church in Unionville and the Holy Cross Catholic Church in South Centerville, according to an announcement by Dupee & Monroe, P.C., the law firm representing the eight men.
“Our investigations have uncovered an additional fourteen individuals who were also molested, sodomized and/or raped as children by Fr. Boxelaar from 1968 to 1985,” said attorney Jim Monroe in the press release from Dupee & Monroe. “During this 17-year reign of sexual terror, Fr. Boxelaar sexually abused a child over four thousand five hundred times which anecdotally equates to the sexual exploitation of a child by this priest once every 1 1/2 days.”
The 2020 court filing states there was a molestation complaint against Boxelaar as early as 1973 at Our Lady of Mt. Carmel Parish School and others afterward.
He was charged by New York State Police in 1985, but the charges were dropped in exchange for Boxelaar’s retirement, according to a 1985 letter by Very Rev. Matthias J. DesLauriers of the Provincial of the Carmelite Order. After time at the “retreat house in Williamstown, Mass.,” Boxelaar was sent to his home country of Holland, where he died in 1990 at the age of 81.
What is in the archdiocese settlement?
The Archdiocese of New York has agreed to a multi-part settlement proposal with the Plaintiff Liaison Committee, which is a collective of eight law firms that represent over half of survivor claims, according to a press release from Jeff Anderson and Associates.
Contingent upon final documentation and full survivor agreement, the proposed settlement includes four parts:
The 2020 Orange County complaint court filing for the eight men cited, “The Archdiocese, the second-largest diocese in the United States by population, encompasses 296 parishes and serves approximately 2.8 million Catholics, in addition to hundreds of Catholic Schools, hospitals and charities.”
Contact reporter Vandana Saras at vsaras@usatodayco.com and @orangecountynyreporter on Instagram.
This article originally appeared on Times Herald-Record: NY Archdiocese $800M settlement pauses Orange County sex abuse trial
Reporting by Vandana Saras, Middletown Times Herald- Record / Times Herald-Record
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