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July 13, 2007

Lawsuit alleges priest sex abuse in Delaware

A man filed a lawsuit Thursday alleging he was molested as a teen by a Catholic priest, becoming the first person to sue under a new Delaware law allowing child sexual abuse victims to seek damages for misdeeds that occurred years ago.

Robert Quill, 52, a Wilmington, Del., native who lives in Marathon, Fla., filed a federal lawsuit alleging that as a teenager he was molested at least 300 times by the Reverend Francis G. DeLuca, who worked for the Catholic diocese of Wilmington for 35 years.

Quill's lawsuit alleges that church officials in Wilmington knew as early as 1958 that DeLuca was sexually abusing young boys, yet continued to allow him to serve as a priest for a generation.

The lawsuit was filed less than 48 hours after Gov. Ruth Ann Minner signed a law abolishing Delaware's two-year statute of limitations on personal injury lawsuits for victims of child sex abuse.

In the early 1990s, DeLuca, now 77, retired to his hometown of Syracuse, N.Y., where he pleaded guilty last month to repeatedly sexually abusing a boy there.

Shortly after DeLuca was arrested in New York, Wilmington bishop Michael Saltarelli released the names of 20 diocesan priests, including DeLuca, against whom the diocese had substantiated allegations of child sexual abuse.

A phone number for DeLuca in New York could not immediately be found.

Quill retired as a staff attorney for the federal appeals court in Atlanta after being diagnosed in 2002 with post-traumatic stress disorder.

He is seeking compensatory and punitive damages worth at least $2.5 million, the amount he said he lost in salary and pension benefits when he retired early because of his condition. (AP)

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