If you were an altar boy, a parish kid or a family friend of Father John Geoghan, we believe you.

For 31 years John Geoghan was a priest of the Archdiocese of Boston, six parishes, Saugus out to Weston, and the thing everyone knows about him happened at the very end: in January 2002 a jury in Middlesex Superior Court in Cambridge found him guilty of indecent assault and battery on a 10-year-old boy. A swimming pool, back in 1991. Nine to ten years. He didn't serve it; another inmate killed him in prison on August 23, 2003. That is the record. It's also why, when people mean the whole Boston scandal, his is the name they type. More than 130 people have said he abused them as children. 84 suits were filed against him, the Archdiocese and the bishops who moved him, and the Archdiocese settled them. If you were one of the kids in one of those six parishes and never came forward, or came forward and it went nowhere, this page is for you. It is honest about the Massachusetts law, which is mostly against you today and might not be by January.

WatchingWatching: a bill to end the age-53 rule, open a two-year lookback and repeal the $20,000 charitable cap (S.3141 with House Amendment 110) is in a House-Senate conference; it has to reach the Governor by January 5, 2027.

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Looking for the page about the Archdiocese, not the man? Archdiocese of Boston survivors: the Attorney General's 2003 findings, the five counties, the bill in conference.

This applies to you no matter what

You weren't an altar boy. His file, as the Globe reconstructed it in January 2002, is mostly families: a mother of four in Hingham, seven boys in one Jamaica Plain household, a boy at a pool. Serving Mass was never the test.
It was the '60s or '70s and you've assumed that door closed a long time ago. On today's law it mostly did, if you were born before 1974. The deadline section says exactly why, and what is sitting in a conference committee that would change it.
You already got something. The Archdiocese settled roughly 50 Geoghan claims before 2002 and 86 more that September. A signed release is a real thing, and a lawyer reads it before anyone tells you what it means. Don't assume.
It wasn't inside a parish. Regina Cleri, a pool, your own living room after he'd been pulled from St. Julia's. The one count that stuck, the 1991 one, came two full years after the Archdiocese had already ordered him out of ministry. Sit with that.
You live in New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Florida, anywhere. The case would sit in Massachusetts and you wouldn't have to.

Geoghan's record: the warnings, the conviction, the dismissed indictments, the settlements and the Attorney General's findings, in order

None of this is ours. The conviction is a Cambridge jury's, the dismissal is a Superior Court judge's, the warnings come out of the Archdiocese's own file as the Globe printed it, and the findings are the Attorney General's. Every line links to where it came from. A dismissed indictment is not a finding either way, and we say only what the court said.

April 1989

A psychiatrist who had treated Geoghan told the Archdiocese, in the Globe's account of the personnel file: "You better clip his wings before there is an explosion. . . . You can't afford to have him in a parish." Geoghan was at St. Julia's in Weston, where Cardinal Law had assigned him in November 1984. Bishop Robert Banks ordered him out of ministry on April 28, 1989. The Globe published the file, released under court order, on January 24, 2002, the same week a jury convicted him. Boston Globe, January 24, 2002.

1998

Geoghan was defrocked, 36 years after his ordination. By then the Archdiocese had settled about 50 claims against him for more than $10 million, and 84 more suits were pending. The Globe's chronology of his assignments, drawn from court documents and medical records, runs from Blessed Sacrament in Saugus in February 1962 to St. Julia's in Weston, where he stayed on the roster until January 1993, and then to the Regina Cleri residence for retired priests until 1996. Settlements, all of them, the Archdiocese's own choice; no court ever found a thing. Boston Globe chronology, January 7, 2002 (BishopAccountability archive).

January 2002

Guilty. Middlesex Superior Court, Cambridge, a 10-year-old boy, the pool, 1991. Three criminal cases were brought against him. This one got to a jury. Judge Sandra Hamlin ordered 30 days of psychiatric evaluation before she'd sentence him. AP national digest, January 24; NPR the same day. Associated Press national digest, January 24, 2002.

February 21, 2002

Nine to ten years. That was the maximum, and he'd have been eligible for parole after six. Fox's report has the count: "Since 1995, more than 130 people have claimed Geoghan fondled or raped them," plus more than 80 civil suits with his name on them. The boy, by his own account at trial, was trying to teach himself to dive when Geoghan reached inside his swimming trunks. The story also records that church officials knew of allegations years earlier and moved him from parish to parish; that is Fox's sentence, and the Attorney General's report, below, is the finding behind it. Fox News.

March 1, 2002

Commonwealth v. Geoghan, indictments 99-11434 (001, 002), Massachusetts Superior Court, Hinkle, J. Two counts of rape of a child; the conduct was alleged to have happened between December 1980 and December 1984. Dismissed. Not on the facts, though. What the judge found was a clock problem. The Department of Social Services had reported to the District Attorney in March 1986, and that report started the ten-year criminal clock. It ran out in March 1996. The Legislature did stretch the period to fifteen years, but two months late. "Because the Commonwealth has failed to meet its burden of demonstrating beyond a reasonable doubt that the rape indictments are timely under G.L.c. 277, §63, the indictments must be dismissed." So those two counts never went to trial. Here they stay what they are: allegations, and a court never reached them. Commonwealth v. Geoghan (CourtListener).

September 2002

$10 million, 86 people, all of whom said Geoghan had abused them; the Archdiocese agreed to pay it. A settlement, not a judgment. The AP wrote this one the weekend he died. August 2003, Souza-Baranowski, Shirley. By then, more than 130 people had come forward. Three decades a priest. Associated Press via NBC News.

July 23, 2003

789 alleged victims. 250 priests and church workers. That's the Attorney General of Massachusetts counting, in a report whose title says it all: The Sexual Abuse of Children in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston. Geoghan gets named, page 27: "As early as 1979, and at different times in the 1980's and 1990's, senior Archdiocese managers received allegations of sexual abuse of children by Father John Geoghan." At page 34 the report found that in a June 1989 conversation with an assistant district attorney, Bishop Banks "failed to provide full information then known to him and the Archdiocese about Geoghan's past history of child sexual abuse." Those are the report's findings, quoted, not ours. Massachusetts Attorney General, July 23, 2003 (PDF).

September 16, 2026

The one that isn't history yet. A House-Senate conference committee is meeting on a bill that would end the civil statute of limitations for child sexual abuse, open a two-year window for claims that are barred today, and remove the $20,000 cap that Massachusetts puts on a charity's liability. The House passed its version unanimously. It has to reach the Governor by January 5, 2027. The report notes more than 120 claims against the Archdiocese tied to Geoghan alone. WCVB, via BishopAccountability.

We checked this on September 22, 2026, and the newest thing in it is from September 16, 2026. When something new gets filed or decided, it goes in here within 72 hours, with the link.

Who can be held responsible for John Geoghan

Geoghan is dead, so there's one defendant left and it's the Archdiocese of Boston. That was nearly true while he was alive, too: the 84 suits named him, the Archdiocese, Cardinal Law and the other bishops who'd assigned him, and it was the Archdiocese that paid. The theory isn't complicated, and for this name the Attorney General wrote it out. Senior managers "received allegations of sexual abuse of children by Father John Geoghan" as early as 1979 and again through the '80s and '90s, the report found, and he went on to abuse other children while on restricted ministry. What they knew is in their own file. The Globe printed that file in January 2002, and the Attorney General read it the year after, 2003. A claim against the Archdiocese comes down to one sentence: the people who assigned him knew, or should've known, and they assigned him anyway.

Now the hard part, and you should hear it here rather than from a lawyer who doesn't call back. The Archdiocese is a charity under Massachusetts law, and G.L. c.231 §85K caps what a charity can be made to pay on a tort claim at $20,000. Twenty thousand. Per case. The $10 million it paid 86 Geoghan claimants in September 2002, and the $85 million it agreed to a year later for more than 500 claims across the Archdiocese, were settlements it chose, not judgments a court forced on it. Nobody on this page will promise you a figure, and anyone who does is guessing. What's on the table in the State House right now is a repeal of that cap for institutions that enabled the abuse. That, more than anything about your dates, is what the watching is for.

Your deadline: the Massachusetts statute of limitations for a Geoghan claim

Until you turn 53, or seven years from the day you connected what happened to what it did to you, whichever comes later. That's Massachusetts today for a claim against the man himself, G.L. c.260 §4C: 35 years from your 18th birthday, or the discovery rule. It's why the questions ask whether you were born in 1974 or later. If you were, you're inside it on age alone. Born in 1973, it comes down to which month. Born earlier and it turns on discovery, which is a conversation with a lawyer, not a date you look up.

The claim you'd actually bring is against the Archdiocese, not Geoghan, and that runs under a different section, c.260 §4C½, added in 2014 with the same shape: 53, or seven years from discovery. Whether that section reaches abuse from before 2014, which is all of Geoghan's, is contested, and the courts haven't settled it. We won't pretend they have.

And then the bill. Three things it does. Erases the age limit. Opens a two-year window for claims that today are barred. Takes the $20,000 cap off institutions that enabled abuse. It has to reach the Governor by January 5, 2027; if it does, and she signs, every sentence above this one changes. Until then, plainly: born 1974 or later, the door is open. Born earlier, it may be. A lawyer reads your dates.

Your situation still qualifies even if

You never told a soul. Or your mother told the rectory and nothing happened; the Globe's chronology has mothers who did exactly that in Hingham in the early '70s and in Jamaica Plain in 1980.
You settled, in 1997 or 1998 or 2002, and signed something. Bring it. A release is read, not assumed.
It's a fragment. A hand where it shouldn't be, once, at a pool. The one count he was convicted of was a single touch in 1991, and a Middlesex jury called it a crime.
You loved him, or your family did. Most of the families in his file let him in the front door. That's the pattern, not a reason to doubt yourself.
You're not sure it counts. That's a lawyer's call, not yours, and the call is free.

The six parishes, and after

The dates are his personnel file as the Globe printed it in January 2002. Blessed Sacrament in Saugus, February 1962 to September 1966. St. Bernard's in Concord, seven months, to April 1967. St. Paul's in Hingham to June 1974. St. Andrew's in Jamaica Plain to February 1980, then sick leave. St. Brendan's in Dorchester, February 1981 to September 1984. St. Julia's in Weston from November 1984, ordered out of ministry in April 1989, off the roster in January 1993, then the Regina Cleri residence in Boston until 1996. The Archdiocese itself, and the other Boston priests with a filed record, have their own page, /archdiocese-of-boston-survivors. Somewhere not on this list? Pick 'somewhere else' in the first question and say where.

Questions people are asking

Can I still sue over John Geoghan if he's dead?

Not him. Another inmate killed him at the Souza-Baranowski prison in Shirley on August 23, 2003, and you wouldn't have been suing him anyway. The defendant would be the Archdiocese of Boston. It assigned him, and when the earlier settlements were paid, the Archdiocese was the one paying. Can you file today? Depends on your birth year, on the discovery rule, and on what the Legislature does between now and January 5, 2027. The deadline section above walks through all three.

Is there a deadline in Massachusetts?

Yes, and it's the reason this page is 'watching' rather than active. Against the man himself the clock runs to your 53rd birthday, or seven years past the day you connected what happened to the harm, whichever is later. Against the Archdiocese it's a 2014 section with the same shape, and whether it reaches abuse from before 2014 is not settled. Born in 1974 or later and you're inside on age alone. A bill in conference would wipe the age limit and open a two-year window; it has until January 5, 2027. A lawyer reads your dates. That's the call.

What is the $20,000 cap I keep reading about?

Massachusetts law, G.L. c.231 §85K, limits what a charity can be made to pay on a tort claim to $20,000 when the harm happened in the course of its charitable work. The Archdiocese is a charity. The settlements it has paid were higher because it chose to pay them, not because a court made it. The bill in conference would lift the cap for institutions that enabled the abuse. Until it passes, nobody honest will promise you a figure.

Was Geoghan convicted, or only accused?

Once. People remember the rape-of-a-child indictments, 99-11434, but those never got tried. A judge threw them out on March 1, 2002, not on the facts, because a 1986 report to the District Attorney had started the criminal clock and it had run. A third case never reached trial. The one that did get tried was the pool, and it's the January 2002 and February 21, 2002 entries in the record above, verdict and then sentence. Everything else on this page is a civil claim that was settled, or a finding in the Attorney General's 2003 report.

I already settled with the Archdiocese years ago. Does that end it?

Usually a release ends the claim it covers, and the Archdiocese settled roughly 50 Geoghan claims by 1998 and 86 more in September 2002. Whether yours covers everything, and what the pending bill would mean for people who signed one, is a lawyer's reading of the paper, not ours. Bring it.

What does it cost?

Nothing. Every case is on contingency. There is no charge for the call, the review, or the case. The firm is paid only out of a recovery, and if there is no recovery you owe nothing.

Who sees your form

Kerim Eravci · Survivor Advocate · Not a lawyer

I was a victim, and I waited. Not because I didn't know what happened to me (I knew every day), but because I'd decided it was over, mine to carry, nobody's business. When I finally went looking for a lawyer, the answer came back in two words I'd never thought about: statute of limitations. My time had run out while I was busy getting through it.

What that has cost me since is a long story, and I'll tell you the whole thing in private, if you want it. The short version is the reason my name is on this page: I'm here to help people do what I wish I'd done, which is find out where you stand while the door's still open.

I'm not a lawyer. I read what you send, I call you once, on your terms, and nothing gets filed unless you say so. Ask sooner than I did.

Kerim Eravci is not an attorney. He's a survivor.

What happens next. Three steps, nothing more until you say so.

You answer 5 questions. Nothing is filed. Nothing starts.
A survivor calls you, once. Not a robot, not a call center. Someone who has been where you are.
You decide. You find out your options. If you want to stop there, you stop there.

How this works

ME2 Survivors Alliance protects the heart. Licensed MA attorneys do the legal work. We are not lawyers and we don't pretend to be.

You never pay a dollar

Every case is on contingency. There is no charge for the call, the review, or the case. The firm is paid only out of a recovery, and if there is no recovery you owe nothing.