The Hartford Roman Catholic Diocese has agreed to settle a sexual abuse lawsuit for $500,000, the victim's attorney said.
In 2011, Rev. Stephen Bzdyra was accused of making sexually illicit remarks and being inappropriate towards an alter boy in the mid-1980s. This suit aganist Bzydra was settled and resolved separately.
Whie the Diocese fully denyed knowledge of sexual or physical abuse commited by the former parish priest, a Catholic nun testified that while seriving St. Francis Church in New Haven, she "witnessed Bzdrya's disturbing and inappropirate behavior" to the altar boy, William Dotson of New Haven, now 40 years old.
According to Faxon Law Group, the nun sent a letter to diocesan authorities expressing her concerns.
"The plaintiff's position has always been that the Diocese should have taken action to eliminate Bzdrya's ongoing and serious threat to children within the Diocese," attorney Timothy P. Pothin with Faxon Law Group said. "Especially for our client, William Dotson, who Bzdrya repeatedly sexually abused over the course of several years."
Pothin said the diocese didn't conduct a "meaningful" investigation and did not conact the nun who made the claim in the 1980s.
In 2011, the state Supreme Court ruled that a former Catholic school principal couldn't sue the Archdiocese of Hartford on claims she was wrongly fired for not retaliating against a student who complained about sexual remarks allegedly made by a priest.
