A new sexual abuse lawsuit was recently filed in Buffalo, N.Y., alleging a longtime Catholic church sex abuse cover up in the Catholic Diocese of Buffalo.

According to the lawsuit, retired Catholic official Donald W. Trautman was involved in a major Catholic church sex abuse cover up in his position as the auxiliary bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Buffalo.

Trautman was an auxiliary bishop in the Catholic Diocese of Buffalo, and later, in 1990, he became a Bishop and led the Catholic Diocese of Erie as well, across state lines and into Pennsylvania.

The lawsuit alleges that the abuse occurred in the mid-1980s, while Trautman worked for the Diocese of Buffalo, and before he became the Bishop of the Erie diocese. Trautman retired from his work as the Erie diocese bishop in 2012.

Trautman, the lawsuit claimed, was aware of priests under his purview abusing children during his tenure with the Buffalo diocese, yet did not stop it. Moreover, Trautman actively covered for the abusers, moving them to different positions to bury any accusations and thereby exposing more children to the risk of sexual abuse.

“Not only were Defendants Buffalo Diocese, Erie Diocese and Bishop Trautman aware of sexual abuse of children, but they participated in covering up such heinous acts by moving errant priests and clergy members from assignment to assignment, thereby putting children in harm’s way,” the complaint said.

The lawsuit was filed by an alleged victim of child sex abuse within the Buffalo diocese. According to the lawsuit, the plaintiff was born in 1974, and the abuse began in the mid-1980s, when he was 10-years-old, serving as an altar boy for a Catholic church in Cheektowaga, New York.

The allegedly abusive priest named in the lawsuit, Rev. Gerard A. Smyczynski, died in 1999.

Trautman has stated that he does not recall the case in question, but the lawsuit claims that Trautman was well aware of Smyczynski’s abuse, didn’t investigate or report it, and then actively covered it up.

According to GoErie.com, the lawsuit alleges that Trautman “expedited an annulment for a member of Plaintiff’s family with the hope of ensuring their silence about the abuses perpetrated by Fr. Smyczynski and covering up those abuses.”

While the plaintiff (who remains anonymous because of a law protecting child victims of sexual abuse) does not accuse the Erie diocese of mishandling the abuse case directly, but rather claims that it is involved in Trautman’s cover up because of its ongoing nature.

“Over the decades, this ‘cover-up’ policy and practice of the Buffalo Diocese and the Erie Diocese resulted in the sexual assault of untold numbers of children, and put numerous other children at risk of sexual assault,” the plaintiff alleges in his complaint.

The lawsuit was filed under the New York Child Victims Act, which has pushed back the statute of limitations for adult survivors of child sex abuse to file litigation until the age of 55 for civil cases and 28 for criminal cases. The Act also created a one-year window in which a victim of any age could come forward with their own lawsuit, regardless of how long ago the abuse occurred.

This lawsuit is one of hundreds of sexual abuse lawsuits that have been filed as a result of this window as a result of the statute of limitations being opened. On Jan. 1, 2020, the look-back window opened resulting in these numerous sexual abuse lawsuits.

This article is not legal advice. It is presented
for informational purposes only.