Scott Verti hopes a lawsuit will start to treatment a long-held remorse.
The 37-year-old Denver man on Thursday sued former Catholic priest Timothy Evans, the Archdiocese of Denver and St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Catholic Parish over allegations that Evans sexually assaulted Verti on the Fort Collins church twenty years in the past.
Evans was convicted of abusing different boys in 2007, however Verti didn’t come ahead as a sufferer at the moment, staying behind the scenes whilst Evans was sentenced to 14 years to life in jail. However when Verti noticed that Evans had been launched from jail in 2020, Verti was able to take motion.
“It didn’t really feel proper that he was out and about,” Verti stated. “I at all times regretted not coming ahead on the time of his first conviction. This was a possibility to unravel that remorse.”
Thursday’s lawsuit was introduced underneath Colorado’s Baby Sexual Abuse Accountability Act, which took impact in 2022. The legislation creates a three-year window by which victims of childhood sexual assault can convey civil claims for assaults that allegedly occurred between 1960 and 2022.
Verti claims that Evans sexually assaulted him greater than 100 occasions between 1998 and 2003, when Verti was between the ages of 13 and 18 and serving as a sacristan within the parish, which meant he was accountable for supervising altar boys, establishing Mass and aiding monks and deacons all through providers.
Due to the assaults, Verti started having bother sleeping and was identified with continual insomnia when he was in seventh grade, he stated. He finally turned to heroin and opioids, which “numbed” his emotions and allowed him to sleep, he stated. He slid into dependancy for years, however is now in restoration and two years sober.
“For a very long time I didn’t notice how unhealthy the abuse was and the way mistaken it was, and I additionally was actually uncomfortable being related to it in any method,” he stated. “So now, a lot later, being an grownup and dealing via a variety of it in remedy. … Hopefully, different individuals can hear this and different individuals can come ahead.”
Catholic leaders had been warned about Evans’ inappropriate habits whereas he was nonetheless in coaching to turn out to be a priest, however ignored these warnings, a 2019 investigation by the Colorado Lawyer Common’s Workplace discovered.
Evans was despatched dwelling from seminary in Rome in 1990 as a result of he inappropriately touched and sexually harassed different college students. One classmate warned the Archdiocese of Denver in 1991 that Evans “shouldn’t be ordained as a result of he would misuse the priesthood,” the lawyer common’s report discovered.
“They knew he had a historical past of sexual harassment, inappropriate relationships with minors all the best way again when he was in seminary,” Verti stated. He is in search of greater than $100,000 in damages, in response to the criticism.
After Evans was despatched dwelling from seminary, the Denver Archdiocese despatched him to a “rigorously supervised pastoral internship” in Northglenn, the place he twice “demonstrated inappropriate boundaries and judgment in relationships with teenage male parishioners,” the AG’s workplace discovered. The archdiocese then required Evans to do one other yr of internship at one other parish earlier than declaring he had been “fastened,” and ordained him.
Evans went on to abuse boys in a number of Colorado parishes.
In 2007, Evans was convicted of three counts of sexual assault of a kid by an individual able of belief for groping a 17-year-old boy in 1999 whereas he was pastor at St. Elizabeth Seton Parish, and that very same yr was additionally convicted of groping a 16-year-old boy in 1995 or 1996 at Spirit of Christ Catholic Group in Arvada. Evans additionally sexually abused a teenage boy at Our Woman Fatima Parish, the Lawyer Common’s Workplace discovered.
Evans was sentenced to 14 years to life in jail in 2007. He was launched on parole in 2020 after serving 13 years in jail.
Verti stated he hopes the lawsuit is not going to solely encourage different victims to come back ahead through the window of civil legal responsibility, but additionally put strain on Archbishop Samuel J. Aquila to do a greater job of listening to and supporting survivors of abuse, and to raised defend kids sooner or later.
“I hope he takes this significantly and utilizing this as a possibility to essentially change,” Verti stated.
Get extra Colorado information by signing up for our each day Your Morning Dozen e-mail e-newsletter.