Monday, February 03, 2025

Lawsuits accuse Brooklyn Diocese priests of sexually abusing kids decades ago

Four people have sued the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn, alleging that four priests sexually abused them when they were children between the 1960s and 1980s.

They say the priests preyed on them in an environment that was supposed to be safe, and that the Church failed to protect them or hold the priests accountable. 

The lawsuits also allege that the diocese knew its priests and staff were exploiting their “positions of trust” within the Church to sexually abuse children.

The lawsuits, filed last week, add to a mountain of sexual abuse accusations against the Catholic Church, both locally and nationwide. 

They were filed under New York City’s Gender-Motivated Violence Act, which allows alleged victims to sue individuals and institutions they say harmed them because of their gender. 

For the last two years, the city law has allowed people to bring litigation no matter how old their allegations are. But that temporary window in the statute of limitations closes at the end of February.

Thousands of lawsuits were filed against the Catholic Church and related institutions throughout New York between August 2019 and May 2021, under a state law called the Child Victims Act, according to a database compiled by the law firm Jeff Anderson & Associates. 

Similarly to the Gender-Motivated Violence Act, the state measure opened a temporary window for people to file lawsuits beyond the statute of limitations. The goal was to provide a second chance at justice for people who were abused as children and weren’t ready at the time to seek accountability in the courts.

One of the lawyers representing the four plaintiffs, Tracey Cowan, said in a statement that the priests had an “outsized influence” over the young people in their care.

“In what now has become a frighteningly familiar story, the Diocese of Brooklyn knowingly and recklessly disregarded the safety of these survivors and others in favor of protecting child abusers within its ranks,” said Cowan, who leads Clarkson Law Firm’s sexual assault practice. “The diocese must be held accountable for its part in destroying these young lives.”

A spokesperson for the diocese did not return a phone call seeking comment Thursday.

Kristin Burnett alleged in a lawsuit that when she was 12 years old in 1985, a priest at her Catholic school massaged her shoulders and pressed his erect penis against her for five to 10 minutes. She said she was preparing for the Sacrament of Confirmation at the time, and that Father Michael Gribbon sexually abused her at a community service event.

The priest, who had been ordained just a few years earlier, held her by the shoulders and repeatedly pressed his groin up against her, she alleged.

“Does that feel good?” Burnett recalled in her lawsuit that he whispered in her ear.

She said she was paralyzed with fear until he eventually walked away. The abuse happened in an auditorium with other people around, but no one intervened, she said.

After the assault, Burnett said in her lawsuit, her grades started to slip. She said she couldn’t finish high school and never went to college, like she had planned. The trauma of the abuse also drove her to drug addiction and alcoholism, the lawsuit alleges.

Meanwhile, according to the lawsuit, Gribbon continued to work with young people. His profile on the Diocese of Brooklyn website currently lists him as a chaplain at St. Edmund High School, in addition to roles at the Department of Sanitation and Resurrection Brooklyn.

Gribbon did not respond to a voicemail or an email.

Three other victims filed lawsuits against the Diocese of Brooklyn under pseudonyms. Two men accused priests of abusing them when they were altar boys in the 1960s and 1970s. A woman said her teacher at a Brooklyn Catholic high school repeatedly raped and sexually assaulted her between 1976 and 1979. They declined to be interviewed due to safety and privacy concerns.

The lawsuits cite a history of abuse and coverup within the Roman Catholic Church, dating back centuries. They allege that the church has a practice of transferring sexually abusive priests to different parishes to protect them from discipline and avoid public scrutiny.

“These pervasive and systematic issues involving the improper handling of sexual abuse and assault are similarly prevalent within the Diocese of Brooklyn,” the lawsuits state.

The Diocese of Brooklyn has taken several steps in recent years to root out sexual abuse. In 2019, the church published a list of more than 100 clergy with “credible allegations” of sexual abuse against them, along with their assignments over the years. The list specifies whether they have been reassigned, removed from ministry, resigned or are no longer alive.

The diocese reached an agreement with the state attorney general’s office last year, requiring the institution to bolster its policies for sexual abuse allegations and create new positions dedicated to protecting minors and other vulnerable groups. 

The agreement also required the diocese to hire a clergy monitor with law enforcement or counseling experience and an independent, secular monitor to ensure that the diocese follows policies and procedures to prevent and address sexual abuse.