Jury Awards $5 Million in Belleville Diocese Sex Abuse Case
An Illinois jury has awarded a survivor of priest sex abuse $5,000,000. The jury believed the survivor's story that Rev. Raymond Kownacki sexually abused him and other youths, and that top officials of the Belleville Diocese covered it up for decades, including the former Bishop Wilton Gregory. Gregory, now Archbishop of Atlanta and rumored to be in the running for Archbishop of New York, didn't give key documents to his Belleville Review Board which allowed Kownacki to continue to abuse others. Furthermore, it made it impossible for the Review Board to help other Kownacki victims.
This suit was brought in 2002 and demonstrates how the wheels of justice can turn slowly at times, but they do turn. This is a victory for all survivors whose courage and strength have uncovered one of the greatest tragedies of the last 25 years: the abuse of power in the Catholic Church.