An American diocese has paid out $3 million (€2.5m) in a settlement over the sexual molestation of a former altar boy by an Irish-born priest who has since been laicised and has returned to live in Ireland, The Irish Times has learned.
The settlement brings to $14 million (€11.7m) the amount that the diocese of Stockton and its insurers have had to pay for abuses by Oliver O'Grady and follows another settlement of $3.6 million (€3m) in March in a case brought by two other men whom O'Grady molested.
The diocese of Stockton in central California made the latest settlement offer to a 42-year-old man who was sexually assaulted by Limerick-born O'Grady when he was a priest in the diocese between 1971 and 1977.
The man's lawyer, John C Manly, confirmed that the diocese had made the offer last month just a day after he lodged a detailed deposition which he took from O'Grady in Co Tipperary in March this year.
In 1998, in a civil case, a jury ordered the diocese to pay two brothers, John and James Howard, $30 million (€25m) in compensation for abuse perpetrated on them by O'Grady when he was a priest in the diocese but this was later reduced by a judge to $7.5 million (€6.25m).
O'Grady had pleaded guilty in 1993 to criminal charges over the abuse of the two brothers and he was sentenced to 14 years at Mud Creek State Prison in Ione, California, before being paroled in 2000 and deported back to Ireland.
He returned to Thurles where he had studied as a seminarian at St Patrick's College. Up until last month he was living at an address on the Dublin Road in Thurles although he was not there in May when The Irish Times called to speak to him. Neither was he contactable yesterday.
A native of Limerick, O'Grady - who said in his deposition that he was abused himself by two priests when a young teenager - has admitted sexually assaulting and molesting around 25 boys and girls from the 1970s up until the mid-1980s in a series of parishes in the diocese of Stockton.
The complainant in the most recent civil action against the diocese said he was sodomised and raped by O'Grady over a six-year period from 1971 to 1977 when he attended St Anne's Catholic school in Lodi in central California.
The abuse began when he was 11 years old and occurred at the school, in the confessional and at his family home.
Yesterday Mr Manly confirmed that the action was against the diocese of Stockton only and that his client retained the right to proceed with a separate claim against O'Grady.
"I've kept my case against Oliver O'Grady. Oliver has continued to deny that he abused my client and my client is very anxious that he obtains recognition in the courts that he was abused by this man," he said.
Mr Manly travelled to Ireland in March and spent two days taking a video deposition from O'Grady in which he questioned the former cleric about his manner of grooming children for abuse.
A statement from Bishop Stephen Blaire of Stockton said that the diocese was pleased "to bring this matter to closure" and it looked forward to continuing "to reach fair and just resolutions for the victims of childhood sexual abuse".
Additional details from Los Angeles Times and Associated Press.