Two men have filed a lawsuit against the Diocese of Metuchen, alleging a priest who ran a Catholic retreat for boys in Raritan sexually abused them for years, beginning when they were children in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The men, identified in court papers only as M.P. and M.M., say the priest, Juan Andres de Jorge Garcia Reyes, used his access to church youth programs to prey on them while also facing a separate criminal case in the 1990s that never led to an indictment.
Lawsuit Details Years of Alleged Abuse
The lawsuit, filed Oct. 20 in Somerset County Superior Court, names the Diocese of Metuchen, the church and the Society of Jesus Christ the Priest — the Spanish religious order Jorge led — as defendants, according to NJ.com. Jorge served at the Shrine Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament in Raritan and ran Clairvaux House, described in the suit as a Catholic retreat for boys. The two men are seeking monetary damages from the defendants, and the suit alleges the organizations gave Jorge unrestricted access to the boys in his care.
According to the complaint, Jorge began abusing M.P. in 1989, when the boy was 12 and attending church social events alongside roughly 15 to 20 other boys. The lawsuit alleges Jorge brought M.P. into his office multiple times and sexually assaulted him there, while also telling him that “girls are bad” and warning him “not to have a girlfriend.”
Second Accuser Describes Abuse at Clairvaux House
The second plaintiff, M.M., says Jorge first assaulted him in 1991, while he was attending Shoreless Lake School in New Brunswick and living at Clairvaux House. The suit alleges the assaults took place inside Jorge's personal quarters during what were supposed to be private confession sessions, and that Jorge gave M.M. preferential treatment — including a larger bedroom than the other boys at the retreat.
The lawsuit further alleges that Jorge and other priests supplied M.M. with alcohol at church gatherings and forced him to wear a cilice, described in the complaint as a belt of nails. Those allegations echo a broader pattern documented elsewhere in the diocese: a 2019 release of names found that 40 former clergymen with ties to Central Jersey stood credibly accused of sexually abusing children, with the diocese reporting that 11 of those named were either deceased or had been removed from ministry, according to mycentraljersey.com.
A 1994 Grand Jury Decision Preceded Years of Silence
Jorge was charged separately in November 1993 with first-degree sexual assault and second-degree sexual contact in a case involving a boy from Middlesex Borough. A grand jury declined to indict him in May 1994, and that case was dismissed, according to court records cited by the same outlet. A diocesan spokesperson, Anthony Kearns, said Jorge was removed from the Diocese of Metuchen sometime in the 1990s, but declined further comment, saying the diocese had not yet been served with the new lawsuit.
The diocese has faced similar litigation before. In 2021, three separate lawsuits accused the diocese of negligence for failing to protect children from abusive clergy, including former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the Rev. John Butler and Brother Regis Moccia — cases that alleged inadequate training and supervision, per the same outlet's reporting.
Attorney Cites 2019 Law Extending Time to Sue
Attorney Rebecca Kimmel, who represents the two men, said she filed the complaint under a law signed by former Gov. Phil Murphy in 2019 that gives adult survivors until age 55 to bring a civil suit over childhood sexual abuse. Kimmel said coming forward can require survivors to confront both an abuser and a trusted institution at once. New Jersey's statute on the subject allows such actions to be commenced within 37 years after the minor reaches the age of majority, or within seven years of reasonably discovering the injury and its connection to the abuse, whichever comes later, according to state legislative records.
No future hearings in the case have been scheduled, according to court records. The Diocese of Metuchen oversees 90 parishes across Middlesex, Somerset, Hunterdon and Warren counties, a footprint that has placed it at the center of several clergy abuse cases winding through New Jersey courts in recent years.
