2nd Ex-Altar Boy Accuses Foley Priest

Another former altar boy says he was sexually abused in the 1970s by the same Catholic priest who acknowledged fondling former Republican Congressman Mark Foley when Foley was a teenager, the man's attorney said Wednesday.

The new allegations against the Rev. Anthony Mercieca were made by a man who lived in North Miami and was an altar boy at St. James Catholic Church, attorney Jeffrey Herman said.

Herman filed a lawsuit Wednesday against the Archdiocese of Miami, accusing Mercieca of abusing the man, now 40, when he was about 12 years old. The man is identified in the lawsuit only as John Doe No. 26.

"He had been thinking about it before Foley came forward, and then when Foley came out and the church encouraged other victims to come forward, he decided to come forward," Herman said.

In a statement Herman released at his office in the Miami suburb of Aventura, the man said "all of my nightmares came back" when Mercieca's picture appeared on the news last week amid Foley's claims that the priest had molested him.

"I feel so bad that there are more victims out there that have had the same thing done to them," he said.

Mercieca, 69, now lives on the Maltese island of Gozo. No one answered the phone Wednesday at his home. His lawyer, Alfred Grech, did not return calls to his cell phone.

In multiple interviews last week, Mercieca denied having sexual intercourse with Foley, but did acknowledge being nude with him as a boy. He also denied having sex with any underage children.

Archdiocese officials said they had no prior knowledge about Mercieca that would have raised any alarms.

"Any of this type of behavior by Father Mercieca was unknown to the archdiocese and we had absolutely no information to indicate that the father did or would engage in any type of inappropriate or abusive behavior," said archdiocese spokeswoman Mary Ross Agosta.

On Friday, the archdiocese barred Mercieca from all church work as it investigates Foley's claim that the clergyman molested him when Foley was an altar boy at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Lake Worth in 1967.

Foley's claim of abuse by Mercieca followed his resignation after it was reported the former congressman sent overly friendly and salacious e-mails to teenage congressional assistants. The scandal and its aftermath have threatened the Republican Party's hopes of retaining control of Congress following the Nov. 7 national legislative elections.

Mercieca is now retired and does not serve in any parish on the island, but regularly celebrates Mass and hears confession in the cathedral, according to the Archdiocese of Malta. The Maltese church is also investigating.

Herman said his client and Mercieca took a bicycle ride together one day after altar boy practice and then returned to the church where the abuse occurred.

"It was fondling and he performed oral sex on the boy," Herman said. "He attempted on another occasion following altar boy practice, but the boy declined to go on this bike ride and he never went back to the church after that."

Mercieca served as an assistant pastor at the church from 1975 to 1985, according to church records.

Foley resigned from Congress last month after he was confronted with sexually explicit computer communications he had sent to male teenage pages who worked on Capitol Hill. He has since entered a 30-day rehabilitation program for alcoholism, according to his attorneys.