Former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick ran a sex ring of underage boys at a beach house on the Jersey Shore, a new lawsuit claims.
The suit, filed by a man using the pseudonym Doe 14, claims that in 1982 and 1983, when he was as young as 14 years old, he and other victims were taken on weekend overnight trips to a Sea Girt beach house.
"McCarrick assigned sleeping arrangements, choosing his victims from the boys, seminarians and clerics present at the beach house," according to the suit filed in state court under New Jersey's Child Victims Act.
"On these occasions, minor boys were assigned to different rooms and paired with adult clerics."
The victim claims that he fell into McCarrick's clutches in 1982 through Brother Andrew Hewitt, who was then principal at Essex Catholic Boy's High School. Hewitt allegedly abused Doe. He also introduced McCarrick to Doe as someone who could help pay the boy's school tuition, the suit claims.
At the time, McCarrick was Bishop of the Archdiocese of Metuchen. He became a cardinal in February of 2001. Hewitt died in 2002.
The suit names other members of the Catholic Church who also allegedly abused Doe. It alleges that McCarrick steadily climbed the hierarchy of the church despite being dogged by accusations of abuse for decades. The Archdiocese of Newark, which is named in the suit, did not respond to an inquiry.
In 2018, McCarrick, 90, became the first cardinal in nearly a century to resign from his position following his suspension for a credible sexual abuse allegation involving an altar boy in New York. He's denied wrongdoing.
The New York Daily News has previously reported on postcards McCarrick sent to boys that experts say had the hallmarks of grooming.
The new suit is not the first to reference the beach house.
In an interview with Slate last year, McCarrick said he believed his accusers had been manipulated by his "enemies" to come up with similar stories involving abuse on the Shore.
"I'm not as bad as they paint me. I do not believe that I did the things that they accused me of," he said.
"There were many who were in that situation (at the beach house) who never had any problems like that."
