One of the most notorious pedophile priest stories in Orange County Catholic history involved Richard T. Coughlin, founder and longtime head of the internationally famous All-American Boys Choir. He had to step down in 1993 after six men came forward to say he sexually abused them in Orange County when they were children. After that went public, it emerged that he was shipped here in the 1960s after molestation accusations back in the Archdiocese of Boston dating back to the 1950s, that officials in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and Diocese of Orange knew about these allegations yet welcomed him, and that the Orange County District Attorney’s office was contacted by victim yet chose to do nothing.
Lawsuits against Coughlin in Orange County, LA and Boston have totaled over $3 million in settlements, according to the Orange County Register. And that number will probably only after the filing of yet another civil suit in Orange County Superior Court last week. Filed earlier this month by attorneys Anthony De Marco of Pasadena and Jeff Anderson of Minnesota, both with decades of experience going against pedo-priests and their protectors, the lawsuit states that the plaintiff was enrolled in the All-American Boys Choir choir in 1990 as a 10-year-old, and started getting molested shortly after. It spells out in sickening detail how Orange diocese officials not only knew of complaints against Coughlin, but did nothing about them. Even worse, however, was the Chorus: according to the lawsuit, the director of the Chorus that followed Coughlin accused Orange officials of “being unfair and unjust” toward Coughlin.
The chorus, the suit states, “took no measure to ensure children, their parents, volunteers or employees of CHORUS had any trainin in the prevention, detection or reporting of suspected child molestation.”
Named as defendants are Coughlin, the Orange diocese, and the All-American Boys Choir. The suit asks for compensatory and punitive damages “and such other relief as the court deems appropriate and just.” Heckuva job, Brownie!
