Fourteen nuns accused in Boston abuse suit

BOSTON – Nine former students at a Roman Catholic school for the deaf filed a lawsuit Tuesday alleging they were raped, beaten and tormented decades ago by the nuns who ran the school .

They accused at least 14 nuns in the lawsuit, along with a priest and a male athletic instructor at the now-defunct Boston School for the Deaf, and a former top official of the Boston Archdiocese, according to their lawyer, Mitchell Garabedian.

The case is the first to allege widespread abuse by nuns in the Boston area since the sex scandal that engulfed the archdiocese began in 2002.

The alleged victims – three women and six men – ranged in age from 7 to 16 when, they claim, they were sexually and physically abused between 1944 and 1977.