Nearly two dozen more people are coming forward with accusations dating back to the 1990s and early 2000s of sexual abuse by two priests and staff members at Maryville Academy, a suburban Catholic Church home for troubled kids.
Seven people had already filed lawsuits in the Circuit Court of Cook County in the previous two years against the Des Plaines facility. The lawsuits name the Rev. John Smyth, who ran the organization for decades and died in 2019, and the Rev. David Ryan, alleging that priests and staff committed and covered up sexual abuse of children in their care.
Ryan, who has been accused — and cleared — of sexual abuse three times, was placed on leave from the Archdiocese of Chicago on Tuesday amid the new abuse allegations from about 30 years ago at Maryville.
Mike Grieco, a lawyer representing the plaintiffs in the lawsuits, said Thursday that 23 additional people have now come forward with new allegations against the priests and Maryville staff. They are considering additional legal action.
“It’s an evolving piece where people keep coming forward,” Grieco said. “These are troubled kids that are now in their 30s and 40s that have come forward and I think the main theme is just the lack of oversight by two people who were running the facility and had the power to kind of control everything and keep everything quiet while they were doing this.”
A spokesperson for Maryville Academy, which is still in operation, told the Sun-Times in a statement that they were “looking into” the allegations.
“Our mission is to protect children. We were made aware of the allegations from more than 20 years ago. We are looking into it,” the statement read.
Grieco wants to call former Gov. Rod Blagojevich for a deposition in the pending lawsuits because, at one point during his term, he had allegedly been urged to shut down Maryville but did not.
Smyth was once one of Chicago’s most well-known and highly-respected priests during the decades he ran Maryville from 1970 to 2003. He was revered for his ability to secure millions of dollars in government funding for the facility.
But Maryville came under intense scrutiny in the early 2000s when child-welfare workers were alarmed by violence and suicides involving children living at Maryville, which were the subject of a Chicago Sun-Times investigation in 2002.
The next court date for the consolidated cases is set for Aug. 12. A trial date is scheduled for Nov. 24.