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13 May 2017

Minnesota bishop sued for coercion, blackmail over sex abuse accusation

A deacon candidate for a rural Minnesota diocese sued his bishop this week on grounds of blackmail and coercion after the prelate allegedly threatened his ordination if he didn’t renounce a prior revelation of sexual abuse by the diocese’s former vicar general.
In the civil lawsuit filed May 8, Ronald Vasek alleges that Crookston, Minnesota, Bishop Michael Hoeppner in October 2015 coerced him into signing a letter that retracted his disclosure to the bishop approximately five years earlier that Msgr. Roger Grundhaus had sexually abused him on a trip to Ohio while a teenager in the 1970s.

http://www.cathnewsusa.com/2017/05/minnesota-bishop-sued-coercion-blackmail-sex-abuse-accusation/?newsletter=1