How the Long Island Catholic Church played a role in the Archdiocese of New York's settlement

The landmark $800 million settlement between 1,300 clergy sex abuse victims and the Archdiocese of New York came partly because of a similar legal battle with the Catholic Church on Long Island, attorneys for victims in both cases said Sunday.

Unlike in the Diocese of Rockville Centre, the Archdiocese of New York never declared bankruptcy, the attorneys said. And in New York, attorneys were able to obtain an agreement from the church to release a trove of internal files on the abuse that have been kept secret for decades. The Rockville Centre diocese hasn't released internal files of abuse involving its accused clergy.

"A lot of this was trying to learn from what didn’t go right in Rockville Centre," said Jordan Merson, a Manhattan-based attorney who represents victims in Rockville Centre and New York.

Rockville Centre and victims engaged in a four-year battle after the diocese declared bankruptcy in October 2020. The diocese reached a $323 million settlement in December 2024 with about 600 victims. Legal fees combined for both parties surpassed $100 million — money that advocates and attorneys said could have gone to the victims.

"I think all the parties wanted to avoid a multiyear, very expensive bankruptcy," Merson told Newsday, referring to the New York settlement. "Here we really wanted it [the money] all to go to survivors."

Paul Mones, a Los Angeles-based attorney who represented victims in both cases, said the yearslong Rockville Centre diocese court case taught that "it will take years for bankruptcy to unwind, during which period of time the claimants suffer even further emotional damage." 

Another attorney who represented victims in both locations, Jeff Anderson, said Sunday that the settlement in New York "is a crowning achievement and by contrast night and day" with Rockville Centre, amid its bankruptcy proceedings.

"In the Diocese of Rockville Centre, there was a shroud over the proceedings and a settlement done more in the shade than in the light," Anderson, based in Minneapolis, told Newsday. "This brings bright light to what has been done and prevents it from being done in the future" in the Archdiocese of New York.

The Diocese of Rockville Centre said through a spokesperson, the Rev. Eric Fasano: "The greed and intransigence of certain plaintiffs' lawyers is what drove costs, prolonged the process, and ultimately took monies from survivors. We are grateful that our process concluded nearly two years ago and pray that society seeks to prevent and end child abuse everywhere."

He added that "bankruptcy is a public process, handled by a federal court. All documents and proceedings are open to the public and subject to public scrutiny. The Diocese concealed nothing."

Anderson contended that "the Catholic bishops across the country have used this device [bankruptcy] to delay justice, avoid public scrutiny, the disclosure of damning documents in their files by top officials for decades."

In New York State, those dioceses also included Rochester and Syracuse, he said.

In the Archdiocese of New York, "the survivors ... through this settlement have forced the disclosure of the sordid histories by the clergy and lay leaders in the Archdiocese, never before exposed, or held to account," Anderson said in a statement.

He called that "monumental" and a "breakthrough."

Fasano said the Long Island diocese will release its files on accused priests, but he did not know when.

Attorneys for the victims announced the proposed settlement Friday night, though New York Archbishop Ronald A. Hicks said Saturday the deal would not be final until the victims, lawyers and archdiocese representatives sign it, probably in early November.

"We are on the verge of being able to, please God, bring some measure of healing and reconciliation to all victim-survivors," Hicks said in an email to priests of the archdiocese. The agreement "will also allow the archdiocese to turn its full attention once again to its mission of preaching the Gospel, healing the sick, caring for the poor and needy, welcoming the stranger, and educating our children."

Richard Tollner, a victim who served as a leader of the victims in the Rockville Centre proceedings, said Sunday he was "relieved" by the proposed settlement in New York.

"Victims were under the burden of time and the stress of potential bankruptcy and the pain that process would incur," he told Newsday. "Getting a settlement at the proposed amounts proves victims’ credibility."

Settlement negotiations with the Catholic Church in New York State were spurred by a 2019 law that allowed childhood victims of sex abuse to sue their abusers regardless of how long ago the alleged abuse happened.