BOSTON (AP) - Civil lawsuits brought against the Boston Archdiocese by dozens of people who claim they were molested by a defrocked priest could avoid trial under a tentative settlement.
Cardinal Bernard Law's attorney said Tuesday the Roman Catholic archdiocese and alleged sex abuse victims of John Geoghan have reached a provisional $10 million settlement.
"Tentative is the operative word," attorney J. Owen Todd said of the deal negotiated before a judge planned to rule on the validity of a previous settlement worth up to $30 million.
Church lawyers made the latest offer in late July, Todd said, before the sides went to court to determine if the previous settlement was binding.
The lead attorney for the plaintiffs, Mitchell Garabedian did not return a message seeking comment left Tuesday night by The Associated Press. However, he told Boston TV station WCVB that he has been negotiating with church lawyers and said he was encouraged.
Todd said Garabedian told him Tuesday morning that all but one of the plaintiffs had agreed to the settlement. All plaintiffs must agree for the deal to be finalized.
The previous deal was announced in March, but the archdiocese backed out in May when its finance council rejected it. Some 86 plaintiffs — 70 who were allegedly sexually abused by Geoghan and 16 relatives of victims — have sued the archdiocese.
Garabedian asked Judge Constance Sweeney to enforce that earlier agreement, which called for the archdiocese to make payments to victims ranging from $10,000 to $938,000 each. Sweeney had encouraged the lawyers to settle before she ruled on the first offer.
The new offer has been approved by the finance council, Todd said.
In other developments:
A former altar boy who said that a high-ranking church official molested him in the 1980s withdrew his lawsuit Tuesday, after questions arose about the validity of his claims.
Monsignor Michael Smith Foster, the chief canon lawyer for the Boston Archdiocese, had maintained his innocence since Paul Edwards, 35, first claimed in a lawsuit filed last month that Foster molested him repeatedly when Edwards was a teenager.
"I am grateful to God that the truth has been revealed," Foster said. "These false accusations have done harm, not only to me, but also to the true victims of abuse."
The lawsuit was dismissed with prejudice, meaning it cannot be refiled, said Ellen Martin, one of Foster's lawyers. The Boston Globe reported Wednesday that prosecutors are reviewing the case for evidence of criminal conduct in Edwards' filing of a possibly unfounded claim.