Utah brothers' sex abuse case dismissed due to statute of limitations

Published: 2007-03-20

SALT LAKE CITY (CNS) -- In a unanimous decision announced March 13, the day before Bishop John C. Wester was installed as bishop of Salt Lake City, the Utah Supreme Court affirmed the lower courts' dismissal of a civil lawsuit in which two brothers said a priest had sexually abused them in the 1970s. The court, which heard oral arguments in the case more than a year earlier, said the statute of limitations had expired long ago in the cases brought against the Diocese of Salt Lake City by Charles Colosimo, 45, and Ralph Colosimo, 53. The brothers charged that then-Father James Rapp abused them between 1970 and 1975. They had sought $80 million in damages from the diocese; Rapp; Judge Memorial Catholic High School in Salt Lake City, where Rapp taught; three priests who were administrators at the school; and the Oblates of St. Francis de Sales, the religious order to which Rapp formerly belonged. Rapp did not face criminal charges in Utah but pleaded no contest in 1999 to a sex abuse charge in Oklahoma and is serving a 40-year prison sentence.

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