The Roman Catholic Diocese of Burlington, which still faces two dozen lawsuits alleging sexual misconduct by priests, will see the next one come to trial May 5th.
In it, former altar boy Perry Babel, of Denver, accuses the Diocese of failing to protect him from former Rev. Edward Paquette, saying church officials transferred Paquette to Burlington without telling anyone he’d been accused of molesting boys in Rutland, Montpelier and two other states.
The trial, in Chittenden County Superior Court, will be the second to go before a Vermont jury. In December, a jury that heard the case of a former Northeast Kingdom man who sued the Diocese over his molestation found negligence by the church but gave him only $15,000 in compensatory damages.