The Catholic Church paid more than $1.5 million last year to settle a lawsuit filed by a man who says a priest sexually assaulted him in New York and Hawaii when he was in high school from 1979 to 1982.
David Husted Jr., 51, of Texas sued the Diocese of Buffalo, N.Y., and the Roman Catholic Diocese of Honolulu in 2014. He also sued now-former priest James A. Spielman; the Southern Tier Catholic School Archbishop Walsh Academy; the New York high school Husted attended and where Spielman was a teacher; and the Southdown Institute, a nonprofit facility in Canada where the Catholic Church sends priests for treatment and counseling for addictions, pedophilia and other mental health problems.
The Diocese of Buffalo paid $1.5 million. The Diocese of Honolulu paid $25,000. The payments settle all claims against all defendants.
The parties to Husted’s lawsuit settled in June. They chose not to disclose the settlement terms in court so as not to affect similar lawsuits in mediation. Details of the settlement, however, were outlined in an ongoing bankruptcy case Husted filed in Texas.
Husted said in his lawsuit that Spielman had a long history of molesting boys prior to 1979 and that the Diocese of Buffalo transferred Spielman from parish to parish under its control because of allegations of child sexual abuse. He says the diocese had even sent Spielman to the Southdown Institute.
During his four years of high school, Husted said, other students reported to teachers and school staff that Spielman had sexually abused them and that another teacher had walked in on Spielman hugging and kissing him. Despite that, Husted said, the Diocese of Buffalo continued to allow Spielman to have unsupervised contact with minor boys.
Michelle Betti, Husted’s lawyer, said that in the summer of Husted’s junior year of high school, Spielman got a one-month assignment on Molokai, where he brought Husted and five classmates to do service at Kalaupapa, where Husted said he was also sexually abused.
Betti said Husted is still dealing with the repercussions of years of sexual abuse. She said he chose to have himself identified as a sexual abuse victim in order to help other victims.
In April 2015 a state judge granted a request by the Diocese of Honolulu to consolidate all of the sexual abuse lawsuits filed in state court against Catholic Church entities in Hawaii since lawmakers suspended the statute of limitations for such lawsuits. The judge also halted all proceedings and ordered the parties into mediation. The order covered 38 state lawsuits.
Husted filed his lawsuit in U.S. District Court. The federal judge assigned to the case, however, ordered the parties to participate in the state mediation. There have been no announced settlements in any of the state cases.
This is not the first time the church has paid money to settle a sexual assault claim against Spielman. In 2002 a man reported that the Diocese of Buffalo paid him $150,000 to settle his claim that Spielman sexually assaulted him when he was an altar boy in the 1970s. The man said he received the money in 1994 in a confidential settlement but spoke up about it after the Cardinal of Chicago urged victims to speak out if it would help them heal.
Husted and the Diocese of Honolulu declined comment. The Diocese of Buffalo did not respond to a request for comment. Spielman, 72, who resigned from the priesthood in 1993 and now lives in Hawaii, could not be reached for comment.
