Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Minnesota attorney launches London firm to pursue sex-abuse claims

Jeff Anderson, the Minnesota attorney whose firm has pursued more than 1,000 sex-abuse cases against the Catholic Church in the United States - including several in Wisconsin - is launching a new London-based firm to pursue similar litigation in the United Kingdom, where revelations of abuse exploded last year.

The new practice, a collaboration with London-based solicitor Ann Olivarius, will announce its first lawsuit, filed Monday in federal Court in Minneapolis.

The lawsuit names as defendants the Diocese of Clogher in Ireland and Father Francis Markey, an Irish priest who is accused of molesting children in Ireland, England and the U.S. Markey was extradited from the U.S. to Ireland last year.

"This touches on the international movement of these guys - not just from parish to parish but state to state, and that's the problem," Anderson said by telephone from London on Monday.

"It's a global problem."

Anderson represents plaintiffs in about a dozen civil fraud cases pending against the Archdiocese of Milwaukee over its handling of sex-abuse cases, and in a federal suit in Milwaukee against the Vatican. 

The fraud cases were stalled last week after the Archdiocese sought Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

SIC: JSO/USA