10 priests accused of sex abuse in Guam
HAGATNA, GUAM The number of priests accused of sexually abusing children on Guam decades ago reached 10 on Monday after a woman sued, saying she was sexually abused by the now-deceased Father Juan Camacho when she was 14, around 1972.
The Guam resident, named as T.G. in court documents, said the priest asked her to serve as a receptionist at Santa Barbara Catholic Church in Dededo. At one point, she alleged, Camacho took her into his office, locked the door behind her, asked her about her school work and whether she had any boyfriends, and then sexually abused her.
T.G., 59, alleges Camacho continued to force himself on her after she resisted, and only stopped when she began to cry.
T.G. is the 50th person to file a Guam clergy sex abuse lawsuit in either local or federal court.
Camacho is the brother of Monsignor Zoilo Camacho, who allegedly ignored sex abuse complaints by an altar boy.
A lawsuit filed in March states the monsignor ignored former altar boy Anthony Flores’ complaint that another priest, Louis Brouillard, was abusing him and other boys. The monsignor, according to the Flores complaint, told him, “be quiet.”
T.G.’s attorney, Kevin Fowler of Dooley Roberts Fowler & Visosky LLP, said the complaints by T.G. and Flores raise questions about how the archdiocese handled complaints regarding priests.