Lawsuit says Dallas diocese, Plano church didn’t protect girl from sexual abuse

A brand new lawsuit alleges the Catholic Diocese of Dallas and a Plano church failed to guard a younger lady from a priest who repeatedly sexually assaulted her within the Nineteen Eighties and ‘90s.

The lawsuit, filed Friday in Dallas County, says Richard Thomas Brown — who has admitted abusing dozens of youngsters — assaulted the lady from ages 5 to 9 whereas he was serving as a priest at St. Mark the Evangelist Catholic Church. It names the diocese, the church and Brown as defendants and seeks damages of greater than $1 million.

The accuser, now 38, alleges {that a} years-long coverup within the Roman Catholic Church protected abusers as an alternative of youngsters. Brown, together with 4 different clergymen, was on the middle of a police investigation into abuse allegations within the Dallas Diocese, in line with a search-warrant affidavit police obtained in 2019 to raid diocese workplaces.

Annette Gonzales Taylor, a spokeswoman for the diocese, stated in an e mail Saturday that diocese management was conscious of the lawsuit however had not but reviewed it.

“The priest, who’s already on the record of clergymen with credible allegations posted by the diocese in January 2019, was arrested by police and laicized stripping him of the power to perform as a priest,” she stated.

St. Mark the Evangelist didn’t instantly reply to requests for remark.

In accordance with the lawsuit, Brown steadily pulled the lady out of her Sunday-school lessons and right into a darkish, empty classroom to sexually assault her. Brown “made sure” she attended confession with him, and used that point to assault her, too.

The lawsuit says Brown additionally sexually assaulted the lady at her residence in Plano, the place he began coming by telling the household he was going to “bless the home.” Brown generally stayed in a single day to baby-sit their kids; the lawsuit alleges he would learn the lady tales in mattress earlier than sexually assaulting her after she fell asleep.

The lawsuit additionally alleges Brown would take the lady and her siblings to IHOP, have the lady sit in his lap and rub her genitals as a “sport.”

The girl’s life for the reason that abuse “has been marred by lengthy, tragic episodes of periodic substance abuse, melancholy, extreme anxiousness, consuming problems, and self-cutting,” the lawsuit says.

Brown has admitted to sexually assaulting the lady’s older sister however stated she “was chargeable for initiating contact with him,” the lawsuit says. He faces prices in Dallas County due to his abuse of the sister, in line with the lawsuit.

Court docket information present that at the very least two different lawsuits in opposition to the Dallas diocese involving Brown have been settled in recent times, together with a lawsuit filed in 2020 that accused Brown of repeatedly sexually assaulting an 8-year-old lady within the Nineteen Eighties whereas he was an assistant pastor at Holy Household of Nazareth in Irving.

Brown was pressured out as pastor of Rockwall’s Our Woman of the Lake in 1994, virtually a yr after a girl informed church leaders he had abused her in 1981, when he was in Washington, D.C., on a summer time research go away.

The diocese despatched Brown to a church-run therapy middle in Connecticut, the place a psychiatric analysis indicated he “had an extended historical past of pedophilic habits,” in line with an arrest-warrant affidavit. Brown continued to work as a priest, and he led conferences and religious retreats for adults in a number of states.

When the Irving sufferer’s aunt notified the Dallas diocese in 2004, it stated it didn’t know the place Brown was. In October 2018, the aunt once more contacted the diocese about Brown’s actions, and the diocese alerted police.

Brown was arrested in Missouri in 2020 on a cost of aggravated sexual assault of a kid in Dallas County. Court docket information present that Brown, now 80, has been launched on bond and the case is pending.

Following Brown’s arrest, Bishop Edward J. Burns of the Dallas diocese launched a video message saying that Brown was faraway from public ministry within the early Nineteen Nineties. Though Brown was stripped of his authority to behave publicly as a priest, he wasn’t laicized, or defrocked, till September 2019.

The Dallas diocese launched its record of 31 “credibly accused” clergy members in January 2019. 5 extra names have been added to the record since then.