Ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick has been accused of running a underage sex ring out of his New Jersey beach house.
The victim, identified only as “Doe 14” claimed the sexual abuse began when he was 14 at McCarrick’s beach house in 1982, according to a lawsuit filed Tuesday in the New Jersey Superior Court, the New York Post reported. The victim, now 53, claims he was abused by McCarrick and three other priests.
Ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick accused of running sex ring from NJ beach house https://t.co/FjiH5wWo3R pic.twitter.com/2ebaUPsuTS
— New York Post (@nypost) July 23, 2020
“In the night, with the assistance of others, McCarrick would creep into this kid’s bed and engage in criminal sexual assault of him, whispering, ‘It is OK,'” attorney for the victim Jeff Anderson said at a press conference.
The other three priests involved were named as Gerald Ruane, Michael Walters and John Laferrera. All three had been previously accused of sexual abuse and exposed when New Jersey’s Catholic dioceses released 188 names of credibly accused priests in 2019. (RELATED: Letters Suggest Vatican Imposed Lax Restrictions On McCarrick For Alleged Sex Abuse Since 2008)
The three priests reportedly served as a “crew” that picked out boys for McCarrick, the lawsuit obtained by the NYPost said.
A man has filed a lawsuit claiming that he and others were sexually abused as boys in the 1980s in New Jersey by Catholic priests and bishops, and were groomed for and by Theodore McCarrick, who went on to become Archbishop of Washington https://t.co/UPHHNA1dw7
— WTOP (@WTOP) July 23, 2020
McCarrick then allegedly “assigned sleeping arrangements, choosing his victims from the boys, seminarians and clerics present at the beach house.”
As previously reported, McCarrick was defrocked last year by Pope Francis after he was investigated for sexually abusing minors and adults.