The Diocese of Brooklyn announced plans to resolve about 1,100 cases of child sexual abuse.
Brooklyn Bishop Robert Brennan released a letter this week, writing in part, “To facilitate this global resolution, the diocese is cost-cutting and setting aside significant funds to compensate victim-survivors.
The process of marshalling these funds entails difficult financial choices, but the diocese is committed to fairly compensating all meritorious claims.”
“The diocese wants to make this right,” said Robert Giuffra, attorney for the Brooklyn diocese. “We expect that the cost of these settlements will be in the hundreds of millions of dollars.”
The diocese said, since 2017, they paid over 500 victim-survivors more than $100 million, and the funds, “have not and will not come from your donations to the diocese or from your parish offerings.”
Giuffra told News 12 that the remaining 1,100 cases date as far back as the 1950s, with “more than 90% occurring 35 or more years ago.”
“For many survivors, this has never been attaching a price tag to trauma,” said Nahid Shaikh, an attorney with Jeff Anderson and Associates.
Shaikh said the firm is representing more than 200 survivors with claims against the Brooklyn diocese.
“What survivors are seeking from the diocese is simply not just compensation, but its accountability, acknowledgement, and meaningful action,” said Shaikh.
The two sides said part of the mediation is about bringing healing and taking steps to prevent any further abuse.
“It can offer a more humane process to resolution, and it does allow survivors to be heard in a more-controlled environment without the adversarial tone of a courtroom,” said Shaikh.
“The goal here is to get closure for the victim-survivors, to do the right thing, and to put this in the past,” said Giuffra.
Giuffra told News 12 that the diocese has several ways to pay for the settlements, which includes selling or leasing some of its properties.