Documents unsealed in a lawsuit against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Memphis show priests accused of sexual abuse were moved to other parishes. A court opened about 10,000 pages of depositions and other documents after a year of litigation by The Memphis Commercial Appeal and the Memphis Daily News.
The documents indicate at least 15 priests in western Tennessee were the subject of sexual abuse complaints.
A lawsuit by a man who says he was molested as a 14-year-old in 2000 by the Rev. Juan Carlos Duran was settled last year for $2 million. The diocese paid $1.55 million and the Dominican order $450,000.
"Memphis was a microcosm of the overall scandal," Gary Smith, a lawyer for the plaintiff, told the Commercial Appeal.
"Most of the victims don't come forward, but when they did, then Memphis handled it the way everyone else did: They swept it under the rug."
Lawyers spent several months before the documents were released removing names of both victims and of priests subject to unsubstantiated abuse charges.
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