Jean-Michel di Falco is pictured during a meeting with Pope Benedict XVI and French bishops in Lourdes on September 14, 2008. ERIC CABANIS / AFP
A Paris court has ordered a former Catholic bishop to pay more than €160,000 in damages to a man who accused him of rape and sexual assault in the 1970s, a ruling seen by Agence France-Presse (AFP) on Thursday, March 26, showed.
Jean-Michel di Falco, 84, was accused of sexual abuse while he was a priest and headmaster of the Saint-Thomas d'Aquin school in Paris between 1972 and 1975.
Prosecutors had dropped a criminal investigation into the allegations of sexual abuse against the now retired bishop because the statute of limitations had passed. But a Paris appeals court ordered di Falco – who refutes any wrongdoing – to pay damages to Pierre-Jean Pages, 65, following a long legal battle after he brought a civil case against the clergyman in 2001.
The court ruled that the civil action was not subject to the same statute of limitations. It "follows from the evidence presented that Mr. di Falco's wrongful conduct of a sexual nature caused Mr. Pages bodily harm, for which he is liable to pay compensation," the court said in its judgment.
