BUFFALO (WBEN - Brendan Keany) - On Tuesday, a report circulated indicating that the Catholic Diocese of Buffalo has awarded 127 compensation packages to victims ranging from $2,000 to $650,000. Of those offers, a reported 107 have been accepted, and the total payment of those awards totals $17.6 million.
However, sex sex abuse victims advocates such as Robert Hoatson and attorney Mitchell Garabedian are not satisfied. Hoatson stood outside the diocese on Wednesday morning, and he continues to call for more transparency, and he explained why the above figures are deceiving.
Sex abuse victims advocate Robert Hoatson is again calling on Bishop Richard Malone and the Buffalo Diocese to release all files relating to past abuse and to accept ALL applicants of the compensation program. He says more than 130 claims have been rejected. @NewsRadio930 pic.twitter.com/lLVVTwjXbv
— Brendan Keany (@BrendanKeany)
May 29, 2019 "No one who reported their abuse after March 1, 2018, has been allowed to be a part of this program and, according to reports, 135 cases and claims have been rejected," said Hoatson, who runs the New Jersey-based nonprofit Road to Recovery for sex abuse victims but remains extremely active in Buffalo Diocese advocacy. "How is it that 135 victims who have come forward in this diocese have been rejected by this program? We found that outlandish and outrageous, and if you look at other programs throughout the State of New York, this doesn't exist."
Hoatson, who has long called for the resignation and swamp draining within the Buffalo Diocese, called out Malone for insulting victims by saying that the majority of this process is over, as Hoatson noted that it's never over for the victims who have lost quality of life.
"We're here to complain and contest the entire process the entire process that Bishop Richard Malone has used to compensate the very innocent victims that are here in the Diocese of Buffalo," he said. "There should be no deadline especially by a church whose clergy damaged children for decades and decades, and the leaders covered it up. Therefore, the leaders should not have any sort of control over any of this because they themselves created the problem."
