About 50 more
people have come forward to say they were sexually abused at Catholic schools in
Pennsylvania and Ohio by a Franciscan brother who killed himself in January,
said an attorney who settled 11 alleged abuse cases against the
friar.
Brother Stephen
Baker, 62, stabbed himself in the heart at a western Pennsylvania monastery on
Jan. 26, a little over a week after the disclosure of financial settlements in
alleged abuse cases in Warren, Ohio.
A coroner told the Altoona Mirror that
Baker left a short note apologizing for his actions.
The new accusers
have alleged in recent weeks that they were abused between 1982 and 2007,
attorney Mitchell Garabedian said Sunday. Some said Baker abused them even after
he left teaching in 2000 when he would attend school events in Johnstown, Pa.,
Garabedian said.
The latest
allegations come from people in 12 states who went to school in Warren or were
either middle school or high school students in Johnstown, where Baker taught
and coached, Garabedian said.
The Boston
attorney said he's also heard from four people who say they were abused while
Baker was at a high school in Orchard Lake, Mich.
Baker was named
in legal settlements in January involving 11 men who alleged he sexually abused
them at a Catholic high school in northeast Ohio three decades ago. The
undisclosed financial settlements involved his contact with students at John F.
Kennedy High School in Warren from 1986 to 1990.
Baker taught and
coached at John F. Kennedy High School in the late 1980s and early 1990s and was
at Bishop McCort in Johnstown from 1992 to 2000. He taught in Michigan in the
mid-1980s.
Roman Catholic
Bishop George Murry of Youngstown said this month that he sent letters asking
for information from about 1,200 adults who attended Kennedy High School while
Baker taught and coached there.
The Youngstown
diocese has said it was unaware of the allegations until nearly 20 years after
the alleged abuse.
Messages seeking
comment were left with the Youngstown diocese and the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese
on Sunday.