New Jersey man files lawsuit under New York Child Victims Act

By Nicole M. Wells

A New Jersey man who was allegedly sexually abused as a child by ex-priest Edward Pipala while attending Sacred Heart Church filed a lawsuit Aug. 15 against the Archdiocese of New York under the state’s Child Victims Act.

Under the law, child sexual abuse survivors can bring a civil lawsuit against abusers and institutions that protected them until the survivor reaches the age of 55.

The law also opens a one-year window for victims of any age to bring lawsuits for abuse that occurred decades ago, effectively rewriting New York state’s statute of limitations for childhood sexual abuse.

Identified in the complaint only by his initials, A.C., the 43-year-old Jersey City man was a minor and parishioner of Sacred Heart Church when Pipala was assigned there from 1981 to 1988.

In 1987, when A.C. was approximately 11 years old, Pipala allegedly began abusing him and used his position as a priest to convince A.C.’s parents to entrust their son to his care, according to the complaint.

While serving as assistant pastor and youth minister at Sacred Heart, Pipala created a secret sex club called “The Hole,” and provided alcohol to young boys, encouraged them to drink and smoke in the rectory, engaged in sexual acts with them and took them on trips to a condo in Seaside Heights, New Jersey, the complaint said.

The archdiocese re-assigned Pipala to St. John’s Church in Goshen in 1988, where he continued to run the club and sexually victimize boys, according to the complaint.

Pipala served at a number of parishes between 1966 and 1992, including Cardinal Hayes High School in the Bronx from 1966-1975 and at Moore Catholic High School on Staten Island from 1975-1979.

In 1977, Pipala was in residence at St. Margaret Mary in New York City, when a parent accused him of sexually abusing her son.

Despite the accusation, the archdiocese sent Pipala for psychological counseling and then reassigned him.

In 1992, Pipala was removed from his assignment and sent to St. Luke Institute, a psychiatric hospital in Silver Springs, Maryland.

He pled guilty and was convicted of sodomy and sex abuse in 1993, and served seven years in prison. Upon his release in 2000, Pipala was laicized, and, in 2009, was registered as a sex offender in New York, according to the complaint.

He died in 2013.

In a statement on its web site, the New York State Catholic Conference said: “We pray that the passage of the Child Victims Act brings some measure of healing to all survivors by offering them a path of recourse and reconciliation. The legislation now recognizes that child sexual abuse is an evil not just limited to one institution, but a tragic societal ill that must be addressed in every place where it exists.”

The New York Legislature passed the Child Victim’s Act on Jan. 28. It was signed into law by Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Feb. 14.

The one-year window for victims to take legal action extends to August 2020.