Jury Awards $5.4 Million to Man Sexually Abused by Siena Catholic Academy Principal
Won by Lipsitz Green Scime Cambria.
A Monroe County jury unanimously awarded $5.45 million, including $3 million in punitive damages, to a man who was sexually abused as a child by Father Joseph Grasso, principal of Siena Catholic Academy in Brighton, New York.
What happened
Father Joseph Grasso served as principal of Siena Catholic Academy in Brighton, New York from 1998 to 2004. Beginning in 2002, when the plaintiff was 12 years old and enrolled in middle school there, Grasso used his position to pull the boy out of class and sexually assault him in the sacristy of the adjacent St. Thomas More Church. The abuse continued for more than a year, into 2004. Grasso allegedly threatened the boy with damnation if he ever disclosed what was happening.
The plaintiff, identified in court filings as LG 55 Doe, carried the trauma for roughly two decades. His life was severely disrupted, including a suicide attempt. New York's Child Victims Act, signed into law in 2019, opened a window that allowed survivors of childhood sexual abuse to bring civil claims that had previously been time-barred. Lipsitz Green Scime Cambria filed suit on Doe's behalf in 2020 against Grasso and the Roman Catholic Diocese of Rochester, which had operated the now-closed school.
Attorneys Amy C. Keller and Gregory P. Krull of Lipsitz Green Scime Cambria tried the case in Monroe County Supreme Court. Evidence presented at trial detailed how Grasso exploited his authority as principal to gain unsupervised access to his student, and how the Diocese's institutional structure enabled that access. Grasso, who at the time of trial was working as a chaplain at a VA hospital in Albany, denied the allegations.
On March 13, 2024, the jury returned a unanimous verdict of $5,450,000. The award included compensatory damages for medical expenses, lost wages, and pain and suffering, along with $3 million in punitive damages assessed directly against Grasso. No post-verdict reduction has been reported.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
- 1.13WHAM ABC: Former Catholic school student awarded millions in sexual abuse case against principal·Archived copy
- 2.WHEC News 10 Rochester: Jury awards man $5.4M; he claims abuse by Siena principal at Brighton church·Archived copy
- 3.NewsRadio WHAM 1180: Child Sex Abuse Victim Wins $5.4Mil Verdict Against Siena Catholic Academy·Archived copy
- 4.CBS6 Albany: Former Catholic school student awarded millions in sexual abuse case against principal·Archived copy
More proven verdicts from Lipsitz Green Scime Cambria
All Lipsitz Green Scime Cambria proven verdicts →An Erie County jury awarded $100 million to a woman sexually abused over four years beginning at age 12, the largest Child Victims Act verdict in New York State history.
A Monroe County jury ordered former Rochester Catholic priest Foster Rogers to pay $95 million to a man he sexually assaulted in 1979, when the victim was 15 years old, in one of the largest Child Victims Act verdicts in New York history.
An Erie County jury awarded $65 million to a woman who was sexually abused over seven years as a child by former Buffalo YMCA counselor James B. Jackson, in one of the largest verdicts under New York's Child Victims Act.
An Erie County jury awarded $30 million to a man who was sexually abused as a child by Rev. Douglas D. Thore, a Lutheran pastor in Marilla, NY, in what was reported as the largest Child Victims Act verdict in Western New York at the time.
Related New York verdicts
Sullivan Papain was among the firms representing New York State against Philip Morris, R.J. Reynolds, Brown & Williamson, and Lorillard, securing a $25 billion recovery through the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement.
Anapol Weiss shareholder Kristen Gibbons Feden helped secure $1.6 billion in default verdicts for 104 women sexually abused as children by former Long Island pediatrician Stuart Copperman, one of the largest cumulative civil awards against a single individual in U.S. history.
Hunter Shkolnik of Napoli Shkolnik represented Nassau County in negotiations that produced a $1.1 billion settlement with McKesson, Cardinal Health, and AmerisourceBergen, the three largest prescription drug distributors in the United States.
Paul Napoli served as court-appointed co-liaison counsel for nearly 10,000 firefighters, police officers, and construction workers who developed respiratory diseases after working at Ground Zero, securing a settlement worth up to $712.5 million against the city and its contractors.