Ex-Altar Boy’s Suit Alleges Molestation by Priest : Courts: Riverside man says repressed memory surfaced after reading of Diocese of Orange settlement.

A second former altar boy has filed a lawsuit alleging sexual molestation two decades ago at the hands of a Catholic priest who admitted he had sexually abused an Orange County teen-ager.

James Rogan, 29, of Riverside alleged in a civil suit filed last week in Orange County Superior Court that Father Eluceterio Ramos made him drink liquor, had him pose in the nude and performed sexual acts on him beginning when he was about 10 years old.

Rogan claims in his lawsuit that he “repressed” the memories of the alleged sexual abuse until last May, when newspapers reported a settlement between a former altar boy at the Immaculate Heart of Mary Church in Santa Ana and the Diocese of Orange.

The plaintiff in the earlier case, a 27-year-old man who lived in Tustin, had alleged in a 1991 lawsuit that Ramos made him pose in the nude, plied him with liquor, showed him X-rated movies and then committed sex acts on him over a seven-year period beginning in 1974. Ramos admitted in court papers that he had molested the man when he was a teen-ager, and the Orange diocese agreed to an undisclosed settlement to end the lawsuit.

The new lawsuit names as defendants Ramos, the Diocese of Orange, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and Auxiliary Bishop Michael P. Driscoll of the Orange Diocese. Rogan alleges that Driscoll and other church officials were told of Ramos’ sexual improprieties yet did nothing.

The Diocese of Orange referred questions about Rogan’s lawsuit to diocese spokesman Msgr. Lawrence Baird, who was en route to a vacation in Baja California. He did not return messages left at the vacation residence.

Father Gregory Coiro, a spokesman for the Los Angeles diocese, said: “We do not generally comment on matters in litigation. Our attorneys will address the matter in court.” Rogan is suing the Los Angeles archdiocese as well as the Orange branch because the two groups divided their religious jurisdiction in 1976--two years after he alleges the molestations began.

The lawsuit does not set a monetary amount for damages being sought, but Rogan’s attorney, Werner Meissner, who also represented the Tustin man, said his client is seeking “at least a million dollars.”

A settlement conference between Meissner and the diocese’s attorneys is set for May 23.

“Knowing the cast of characters I doubt that it will be settled then, but maybe I’ll be surprised,” Meissner said. “We’ll see if they’ll just play games and run us through the ringer again.”

The statute of limitations on the case has expired, so his client will not press for criminal charges against Ramos, Meissner said. But a law passed several years ago stipulates that a civil suit can be filed up to three years after a repressed memory surfaces, he said.

Meissner said he will call a retired priest to testify that he once brought a boy before Driscoll to tell him about Ramos’ sexual molestations of other boys.

Meissner said most of the molestations took place while Rogan, now married with two children, was an altar boy and student at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in Placentia, beginning when he was about 10 years old.

The nature of the allegations mirrors many of the charges made against Ramos and the church in the 1991 lawsuit, filed by Ronald Glenane.

In an undated letter to Glenane filed in court as part of the lawsuit, Ramos admitted to molesting the plaintiff, saying the abuse was a “complication of mental, emotional and physical problems and illnesses all complicated by alcoholism.” Ramos also said he himself was a victim of childhood sexual abuse and that Glenane was not the only boy he had molested.

In July, 1993, two months after reports of Glenane’s settlement, Rogan told clinical psychologist Michele Linden that he believed he had been sexually abused as a child, according to a statement by Linden included in his lawsuit.

Ramos left the diocese temporarily in 1979 to enter a chemical dependency program in Massachusetts. A spokesman at the Tijuana Diocese’s Seminary said Tuesday that Ramos is the vicar of Divine Providence Church in Tijuana. He could not be reached for comment.

Times Staff Writer Fernando Romero contributed to this report.