Legal News

Suit against L.A., Mexican cardinals alleges priest abuse coverup

By Richard Binder

A lawsuit was filed yesterday in Los Angeles accusing Cardinal Roger Mahony and his Mexican counterpart Cardinal Norberto Rivera Carrera of negligence and conspiracy in covering up sexual abuses reported by dozens of young boys against Father Nicolas Aguilar Rivera in Los Angeles and Mexican parishes.

The suit was brought by a Mexican man who says he was repeatedly raped by a priest who was shuttled between southern Mexico and Los Angeles in the late 1980s. The complaint relies on a more than 200-year-old U.S. law allowing foreign victims of human rights abuses to bring their perpetrators to justice in U.S. courts. The civil suit on behalf of the now 25-year-old victim is the first known to use the Alien Tort Claims Act of 1789 to demand a jury trial and compensation for offenses committed abroad.

This is the latest in a string of lawsuits brought by alleged victims of Aguilar.  Aguilar was defrocked in July and remains a fugitive in Mexico.

Full story here.

Full post as published by Legal Pad | LA on April 21, 2010 (boomark / email).