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A Catholic priest who was deported to his native India after completing his jail sentence in Minnesota for sexually abusing a child is the subject of a new lawsuit against a diocese in India that allegedly returned him to ministry with Vatican approval.
Attorney Jeff Anderson filed the lawsuit in federal court in Minnesota on Monday on behalf of Megan Peterson, who says the Rev. Joseph Palanivel Jeyapaul abused her starting in 2004 when she was 14 or 15 and he was a priest at her church in the northern Minnesota town of Greenbush. Her lawsuit seeks unspecified damages in excess of $75,000 from the Ootacamund Diocese in India's Tamil Nadu state.
Peterson said at a news conference Tuesday that she felt "abused, degraded and re-victimised all over again" when she learned that Bishop Arulappan Amalraj lifted Jeyapaul's suspension in February after consulting with the Vatican.
Anderson said the Ootacamund Diocese was responsible for the anguish Peterson feels from knowing that he has access to children again.