A federal judge in Spokane, Washington ordered a former Catholic priest who sexually abused an Oregon man to pay the survivor $5,000,000.
Ernest Dale Calhoun, who did not deny the survivor’s allegations, began serving in the Yakima, Washington Diocese in 1977. This sexual abuse lawsuit was not the first case filed against Calhoun who has been sued previously for allegedly abusing other young boys in Yakima.
It is unlikely Calhoun will be able to pay the survivor since he previously filed bankruptcy. The Beaumont Diocese where Calhoun previously served settled with the man for an undisclosed amount of money, and the Yakima diocese paid $75,000 to settle the case, according to local news accounts.
The lawsuit, filed in 2014, alleged that the Rev. Ernest Dale Calhoun sexually abused the victim, identified only as S.K., when he was a 15-year-old altar boy at St. Paul’s Cathedral Parish in Yakima.
Calhoun was ordained a priest in Beaumont in 1968. The lawsuit alleges that he sexually abused a teenage boy in Beaumont before transferring to the Yakima Diocese.