$1M settlement announced over Lawrence, Reading clergy sexual abuse allegations

LAWRENCE — A victim's advocate was outside St. Mary of the Assumption Parish in Lawrence late Wednesday morning to announce a Roman Catholic order has agreed to pay a total of $1 million to eight people who say they were sexually abused by Revs. John Gallagher and Robert Turnbull during the 1970s and 1980s at Catholic schools in Lawrence and Reading.

Robert Hoatson, president of Road to Recovery, Inc., a non-profit charity based in New Jersey that assists victims of sexual abuse and their families, was in Lawrence on the public sidewalk outside the Lawrence church to make the announcement.

Boston Attorney Mitchell Garabedian, who has been at the forefront of representing victims of clergy sexual abuse, said the settlement with his clients and the Augustinian order St. Thomas of Villanove Province based in the Philadelphia area was reached last month during mediation.

Garabedian said three of his clients, now adult women, were abused by a former parish priest who was also a coach at St. Mary's in Lawrence between 1973 and 1976. The victims were 9 to 12 years old at the time, Garabedian said.

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