The New Hampshire Conference of the United Church of Christ and the New Jersey Synod of Evangelical Lutheran Churches (and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America) are being sued in seperate cases of alleged sex assaults.
First, the United Church of Christ suit from the Nashua Telegraph:
NASHUA – A Nashua-area man claims a United Church of Christ camp counselor sexually assaulted him repeatedly when he was a teenager.
The man, now 25, filed suit against the counselor, John Tanguay of North Conway, and the New Hampshire Conference United Church of Christ on Sept. 28 in Hillsborough County Superior Court.
Then, the ELCA suit from the Asbury Park Press:
TOMS RIVER — Five more plaintiffs have come forward to accuse a onetime pastor of St. Thomas Lutheran Church in Brick of molesting them when they were boys during the 1970s and 1980s.
That brings to 11 the number of men who are suing the church on Salmon Street and its officials over alleged sexual abuse.
Meanwhile, the clergyman at the center of the multimillion-dollar lawsuit, the Rev. Robert L. Slegel, who resigned as pastor of the church amid scandal in 1993, died Sept. 1 at age 77. He had been living in Southern Shores, N.C., near Kitty Hawk, according to an obituary prepared by Twiford Colony Chapel in Manteo, N.C.
Dover Township attorney Robert R. Fuggi Jr. filed the $30 million lawsuit against the church last year on behalf of six men who said they were molested by Slegel when they were boys in the 1970s. The suit named as defendants the church; two of its former pastors, identified in court papers only by their initials; the New Jersey Synod of Evangelical Lutheran Churches and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.
Let's hope, if true, these are only isolated cases.
I was a young man attending St Thomas in the 60s and 70s. This is horrible!
Posted by: Tony | October 31, 2010 at 02:39 AM