Last plaintiff settles in church sex-abuse case

The only remaining plaintiff in a trial against the Seattle Archdiocese settled his case Tuesday evening for $700,000, feeling "really good that he got to tell his story," his attorney said. "That was the most important thing."

Attorney Timothy Kosnoff also said his client felt proud that he was able to take archdiocese leaders to court and that he got retired Archbishop Raymond Hunthausen to publicly "admit that mistakes were made."

The 44-year-old Auburn man reached the settlement after an emotional morning of testimony about being abused at age 13 by former Spokane priest Patrick O'Donnell.

The first priest sex-abuse case against the Seattle Roman Catholic Archdiocese to go to trial, it stemmed from a lawsuit filed in 2005 by the plaintiff and three other men, who said the archdiocese didn't do enough to protect them from O'Donnell.

O'Donnell had been sent by the Spokane bishop to Seattle for sexual-deviancy treatment in 1976, after abuse allegations against him surfaced in Spokane.

The case hinged on whether the archdiocese knew of O'Donnell's abusive history when it placed him at St. Paul Church in Rainier Beach during his time in Seattle.

The $700,000 settlement is the same amount that was offered to the plaintiff several months ago.

Kosnoff said his client settled, in part, because of questions some jurors asked after he testified this morning that after O'Donnell abused him in Seattle, he went to visit the priest in Spokane, where he was abused again.

"In honesty, we were influenced by those four jurors who asked these questions about why he went back," Kosnoff said. "I don't want to call it blaming the victim, but it definitely signaled to us that jurors had questions about that and we had to take that into account."

Earlier, the plaintiff settled his claims regarding the same abuse with the Spokane Diocese and the Sulpician Roman Catholic order that ran the seminary O'Donnell attended. Altogether, the settlements total about $1.2 million or $1.3 million — to be reduced by attorneys fees.

Two of the four plaintiffs settled before trial; the third settled Monday.

The plaintiff who settled Monday for $550,000 also settled earlier with the other parties.

Seattle Archdiocese attorney Michael Patterson said, "I'm glad we were able to resolve this."

But, he said, "these two men had separate cases against Spokane and against the Sulpicians, for which they received substantial amounts of money. ... You heard of double-dipping. This was triple-dipping."

In a statement Tuesday evening, Seattle Archbishop Alex Brunett said: "It is my hope that the settlements to all four victims will help them in their journey of healing."

On the stand Tuesday, the plaintiff spoke quietly and with long pauses as he struggled to keep his composure.

He had met O'Donnell when he was a student at St. Paul school and attended the parish church.

The plaintiff said O'Donnell started a teen club at the church. Through the club, boys played basketball with the priest and went on boating trips with him.

O'Donnell abused him on two such outings, he said. The first encounter was his first sexual experience.

The plaintiff said that after O'Donnell returned to Spokane, he and a friend went to visit him. The priest took them to stay at a friend's house.

During that trip, the plaintiff said, O'Donnell got into bed with him and abused him even more seriously.

When he began crying, the priest stopped, and the boy went to the bathroom. The priest came in, telling him — as he usually did after these incidents — that everything was going to be OK, and it was just between the two of them, the plaintiff said.

After O'Donnell went to bed, the plaintiff said, he sat at a table in the room and sobbed.

For a long time he didn't tell anyone about the abuses. "Maybe because he was a priest and I was always taught not to question their authority," he said.

His testimony was followed by testimony from his therapist, Annette Fehrenbach, a Seattle psychologist. She told jurors it's not uncommon for a child to be abused several times by the same person without telling anyone about it.

"A child's brain works differently" than an adult's, Fehrenbach said. Children engage in "magical thinking," she said, believing the abuse won't happen again.

They also take their cues from those around them, so if people are saying that a certain priest is a great guy, it's hard for a child to believe otherwise.

Children may also simply be fearful of accusing an adult of doing a bad thing, she said, and children who've endured such abuse also often feel shame and blame themselves for it.

Janet I. Tu: 206-464-2272 or jtu@seattletimes.com