Two brothers who attended Westbrook church among 3 men suing Catholic Diocese
Dec. 8—Three men who attended Catholic church in Maine in the 1970s, including two brothers who were altar servers at St. Hyacinth church in Westbrook, filed complaints Thursday against the Catholic Diocese of Portland, alleging sexual abuse.
The complaints are among a recent string of suits against the Diocese, following a change in law eliminating a time limit for filing them.
The filings from the brothers said they experienced abuse at the hands of Father Michael L. Plourde in the late 1970s at St. Hyacinth Parish in Westbrook. The other complaint is from a man who said he was abused in 1970 by Father J. Raymond Lauzon, the now deceased priest at the center of an investigative report by the Maine Attorney General's Office in 2004.
The men have asked not to be named. The Press Herald does not identify victims of sexual abuse without their consent.
Lauzon and Plourde are not named defendants in the complaints. The men suing say the Diocese failed in its responsibility to keep children safe from known abusers working within the church.
The Diocese removed Plourde from the ministry in 1994 following reports of abuse, according to the complaint. Lauzon died shortly after the Maine Attorney General's Office was forced to release records identifying nearly 60 church officials who were accused of sexual abuse; he was linked to the abuse of at least 18 minors, the state reported at the time.
According to the newly filed complaint, Lauzon abused the plaintiff at the former St. Joseph the Provider Thrift Store in Portland.
Clergy at St. Hyacinth are the subject of complaints filed in March against the Diocese, in which other men say they was sexually abused by priests John Curran and John Shorty in Westbrook around the same time, as well as a confirmation teacher named Rene Daniel who, according to the complaint, used to lead classes from the basement of his home.
Attorney Michael Bigos with Berman and Simmons is representing the three men who filed the complaints Thursday, as well as plaintiffs behind four other lawsuits filed against the Diocese since March, after changes to state law last summer made it possible for Mainers with previously expired claims to seek legal action from their alleged perpetrators.
In March, Bigos estimated there were "dozens" of Mainers who had been waiting to sue. As of Thursday, he had filed complaints on behalf of eight individuals. They include Robert Dupuis, who said he was abused by priest John Curran in 1961 in Old Town, and Ann Allen, who last week filed a lawsuit against the Diocese for abuse she said she experienced from The Rev. Lawrence Sabatino as a young girl in Portland.
Sabatino was also featured prominently in the Maine Attorney General's 2004 report, which found the Diocese had moved Sabatino across eight different churches from the 1950s to the 1990s. Their investigation found that the Diocese was aware of complaints against Sabatino as early as 1956, when he was moved from Lewiston to Portland after a 6-year-old girl came home to her family bruised, crying and describing sexual abuse by Sabatino.
This story will be updated.
