New lawsuits accuse late Orange County Catholic priest of hundreds of assaults
Attorney Jim Monroe says eight additional men have now filed Child Victims Act lawsuits tied to the late Father George Boxelaar, with 14 other alleged victims also identified as one case nears trial next month.
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Newly filed lawsuits allege that a late Orange County Catholic priest committed hundreds of assaults against children.
Leonard Filipowski says he was just a little boy when his parents dropped him off at Holy Cross Church in Middletown, unable to imagine what he now claims was happening behind closed doors.
“I said, 'Father George kisses me and I don’t like it,'” Filipowski said, recalling how he first tried to tell adults what was happening.
He says no one believed him at the time, and that the abuse continued for four years in the 1970s.
“As a kid, he’s a priest. He’s Jesus on earth. I was afraid to say no,” Filipowski said.
As an adult, Filipowski was one of the first men to publicly come forward in 2019 under New York’s Child Victims Act with a lawsuit tied to the late Father George Boxelaar, a Catholic priest who once served in Orange County.
Now, attorney Jim Monroe says eight more men have filed similar Child Victims Act lawsuits against church entities, including the Archdiocese of New York, the Carmelite Fathers and churches tied to Boxelaar’s former assignments. Monroe says 14 other alleged victims have also been identified.
Those newer cases, which News 12 has exclusively confirmed, are separate from Filipowski’s earlier lawsuit, which remains pending.
One of the additional cases is scheduled to go to trial next month in Orange County Civil Court.
The lawsuits claim Boxelaar abused the children from the late 1960s through 1985 at Holy Cross Church in Middletown, Our Lady of the Scapular Mission in Unionville and Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church in Middletown.
“These cases are about who knew and who looked the other way,” Filipowski said.
Monroe claims the alleged abuse across these cases happened more than 4,500 times.
Newly obtained court documents also reference a 1985 church letter stating criminal charges against Boxelaar were dropped in exchange for his retirement and return to Holland.
Boxelaar died overseas in 1990.
News 12 reached out to the Archdiocese of New York, the Carmelite Order and other church entities for comment, but had not heard back.
