Calif. diocese seen in record settlement

The Roman Catholic diocese of Orange County, Calif., has reached a settlement that reportedly exceeds $100 million with 87 people who were sexually abused by priests and other diocesan employees, topping the record $85 million that the Archdiocese of Boston paid more than 500 victims of clergy abuse last year.

Unlike Boston, where the terms of the 16-page settlement were immediately made public, the judge overseeing the Orange County settlement, Owen Lee Kwong, ordered attorneys and plaintiffs not to discuss details of the agreement reached Thursday. They are expected to be released by the court in about a week, according to lawyers involved in the case.

But a source familiar with the case described a report Wednesday in the Daily Journal, a Los Angeles legal newspaper, that a tentative settlement for ''$100-million plus" had been reached as ''very accurate." The Associated Press quoted someone it called ''a source close to the case" as saying the Orange County settlement would exceed Boston's.

Bishop Tod D. Brown, who presides over the diocese of 1 million Catholics that stretches along some 42 miles of Southern California coastline, said the settlement ''fairly compensates the victims in a way that allows our church to continue its ministry."

Settlement talks lasted two years, and broke down in June when the plaintiffs rejected an offer of $40 million. John Manly, a Costa Mesa lawyer who represented 30 of the 87 victims in the negotiations, said Orange County was one of the richest dioceses in the United States and could afford more than $40 million.

Brown said the settlement will not force the closing of any of the diocese's 56 parishes.

Last May, Brown told parishioners the diocese would have to dip into its investments to pay for a settlement, and he cut 15 percent of the diocesan administrative staff to save $1 million a year to ease the financial burden.

The settlement marked the first multiple plaintiff diocesan-level case in California, where there are more than 800 lawsuits against priests from 10 dioceses and two archdioceses in California. Among those still pending are nearly 500 suits against the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, the country's largest.

According to some legal analysts and victims' advocates, the Orange County settlement increases the pressure on Cardinal Roger Mahony, who leads the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, to settle. Barbara Blaine, president of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said the Orange County settlement also increases pressure on the Los Angeles archdiocese to release documents about abusive priests.

She said it was mostly the insistence by victims in Orange County that documentation about abusive priests be released that caused the settlement talks to last as long as they did.

In a telephone interview from his Beverly Hills office, Raymond P. Boucher, the liaison counsel for the lawyers representing the 87 plaintiffs in Orange County, 145 cases in San Diego, and some 300 cases in Los Angeles, said Kwong's gag order barred him and other attorneys from discussing the Orange County settlement.

But Boucher questioned speculation that the Orange County settlement will increase pressure on Mahony to settle the Los Angeles cases.

''Every diocese and archdiocese has a different set of [financial] circumstances," said Boucher, who noted that the 500 plaintiffs in Los Angeles are seeking a $1 billion settlement that would dwarf those in Boston and Orange County.

Boucher praised Brown for helping to settle the Orange County claims. He said Brown worked diligently, was sensitive to concerns of victims, and spent six hours at Los Angeles Superior Court on Thursday as the settlement was being finalized, and hugged several victims after news of the deal spread.

While some victims and some of their attorneys praised Brown for settling the cases, Blaine said, ''It's the victims' courage and tenacity that led to this agreement, and especially the release of documents, not the bishop."

In Boston, The Boston Globe in 2001 successfully sued for the release of the records of abusive priests, opening the way for coverage of what became the biggest scandal to face the Roman Catholic Church.

In Orange County, Judge Peter D. Lichtman is reviewing which documents about abusive priests will be released. Blaine said only the documents related to the 87 cases covered by the settlement -- involving 30 priests, two nuns, and 11 lay employees of the diocese -- were subject to possible disclosure, while victims and their advocates want the records of all perpetrators in the diocese and other dioceses released.

The cases were filed under a 2002 state law that suspended for one year the statute of limitations in molestation cases to allow victims to sue institutions that failed to protect them, no matter how long ago the abuse occurred.

The Orange County cases included 11 claims against the Rev. Eleuterio Ramos, who on his deathbed admitted to sexually abusing at least 25 boys during 10 years as a priest, and nine claims against the Rev. Siegfried Widera, who was convicted of molesting a boy in Milwaukee before being transferred to Orange County in 1977.

Widera jumped to his death from a hotel in Mexico last year while being pursued by police. At the time of his death, he faced 42 counts of child molestation in California and Wisconsin.

Last year, the Archdiocese of Boston paid out $85 million to 541 people who agreed to settle their claims of abuse. The individual payouts ranged from $80,000 to $300,000, the amounts set by 19 arbitrators.

Before the Orange County settlement, Boston had been the largest in sheer dollar amounts, though there were other settlements, including $23 million for five victims in Dallas and $5.2 million for a single victim in Los Angeles, that were higher for individual plaintiffs. It is unclear how the 87 Orange County victims will divide the settlement.

Monsignor Michael Harris, who was the defendant in the 2001 case settled for $5.2 million and paid jointly by the diocese of Orange County and the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, was also named by victims covered by the settlement reached Thursday. Ryan DiMaria, the plaintiff who won the $5.2 million settlement against Harris, has since become an attorney who represents victims of sexual abuse.

The only clergy abuse case in California that reached a jury verdict resulted in a $30 million award to two brothers in 1998. The court in Stockton reduced that verdict to $13 million, and it was eventually settled for $7 million.