A 38-year-old Smyrna man sued the Catholic Diocese of Wilmington on Tuesday, claiming he was sexually abused at a Galena, Md., church during the early 1980s.Joseph Curry claims the late Rev. Edward Carley sexually abused him at least 100 times from 1981 to 1986, according to a lawsuit filed by the Neuberger Firm.
The alleged attacks started when Curry, then 10, was training to be an altar boy at St. Dennis Church in Galena.
Curry, who recently entered a plea of guilty but mentally ill to robbery, resisting arrest and criminal mischief, is incarcerated in Sussex Correctional Institution near Georgetown.
In his suit he alleges the diocese, which oversees Delaware and Maryland's Eastern Shore, knew Carley was abusing children as early as the 1950s, but remained silent.
"The real tragedy of what Joe had to endure is that it never had to happen," Curry's attorney Thomas S. Neuberger said. "If only Carley had been removed after his abuse was reported in the 1950s, all of Joe's pain would have been avoided."
According to the suit, the "overwhelming shame, anger, guilt, anxiety, panic and depression" Curry experienced led him to embark on a life of petty crime to draw attention to himself.
This is the 16th sex-abuse lawsuit filed against the Catholic Diocese of Wilmington since Delaware's Child Victim's Act became law in July 2007.
Diocese attorney Anthony G. Flynn said the diocese was aware of Curry before the law was passed, but said he would not "comment on the merits of the allegations."
According to the suit, Carley sexually abused Curry in the church basement, the rectory, in Carley's car on church trips in Delaware, in diocesan parishes in Wilmington and on overnight trips to New York, Washington, D.C., and Vermont.
Carley, who died in 1998, would lure boys by flashing large amounts of money, giving them gifts, alcohol and allowing them to drive his car, according to the suit. Carley allegedly bought Curry a car.
Curry is the third person to claim in a lawsuit he was molested by Carley. Suits filed by Doug McClure and John Roe No. 1 are pending.
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