Former downstate priest sued again on sex-abuse claims
BELLEVILLE, Ill. — A former Roman Catholic priest whose molestation of an altar boy led to a $6.3 million payout in a lawsuit is being sued again over claims of sexual abuse.
The plaintiff in the St. Clair County lawsuit filed Monday is identified only as “John Doe S.W.” He accuses Raymond Kownacki of sexually abusing him when he was an altar boy from 1985 to 1987 at St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Valmeyer.
When reached at the retirement home where he’s living, Kownacki told the St Louis Post-Dispatch the lawsuit “doesn’t bother me.”
In August, a nine-year legal fight by a former altar boy sexually abused by Kownacki in the 1970s ended when his attorney received more than $6.3 million in checks from the Diocese of Belleville and its insurer.
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