Survivors of child sexual abuse in Colorado have a three-year window of opportunity to seek justice for past abuse under a new law that took effect this year.

Victims have until Dec. 31, 2024, to report allegations and file civil cases against individuals or responsible institutions, as a result of a “lookback window” signed into law. Senate Bill 88 applies to incidents of child sexual abuse that occurred on or after Jan.1, 1960.

National sex abuse Attorneys at James Vernon & Weeks, P.A., have teamed up with Denver-based Zaner Harden Law and Keeler & Keeler, LLP to file civil lawsuits on behalf of clergy sex-abuse victims in Colorado.

“The new law provides an avenue for victims to come forward, seek justice and hold accountable the perpetrators and the institutions that allowed the abuse to happen,” said Leander James, a founding shareholder of James Vernon & Weeks.

“Survivors of abuse are no longer alone,” James said. “This law allows us to bring them hope, healing and justice.”

On October 22, 2019, the Colorado State Attorney General published a report that catalogued “substantiated incidents of the sexual abuse of children by ordained Roman Catholic priests in Colorado over the last 70 years. It also documents all three Colorado Dioceses’ response and lack of response to those crimes, including their reporting to law enforcement.” The Attorney General found it was “more likely than not that from 1950 to the present there have been at least 127 children victimized by 22 Roman Catholic priests in the Archdiocese of Denver, at least 3 children victimized by 2 Roman Catholic priests in the Diocese of Colorado Springs, and at least 36 children victimized by 19 Roman Catholic priests in the Diocese of Pueblo.”

There are at least 74 individuals credibly accused of sexual abuse, in addition to those named in the Report.

“This is just the tip of the iceberg,” said Craig Vernon, a JVW founding shareholder. “Through our investigations, we are finding more perpetrators, which is unfortunately the norm.”

According to the Attorney General’s Report, one ordained Catholic priest, Fr. John Beno, who served in the Diocese of Pueblo, was accused of raping both a 5-year-old girl and a 16-year-old girl. Another priest, Fr. John Holloway from the Denver Archdiocese, “had a PhD in Psychology, and he appeared to use his skill in that field to systematically groom and then rape 6 boys in Roggen, Denver, Brush, and Loveland between 1962 and 1982. The Colorado Attorney General’s report described Holloway’s behavior was “the most calculated, horrific, and predatory we saw in our entire review.”

The following is a list of accused Catholic clergy abusers from the Archdiocese of Denver, the Diocese of Pueblo and the Diocese of Colorado Springs.