Former New York cardinal Theodore McCarrick, who was expelled from the ministry last year over sexual-abuse allegations, ran a “sex cabal” in the 1980s that involved seminarians, altar boys, and priests, according to an explosive lawsuit filed Tuesday on behalf of a plaintiff known only as “Doe 14.” The now 53-year-old victim alleges he was groomed as a teenager for a role in the sex ring, managed by McCarrick and run out of a New Jersey beach house. Other priests are named in the lawsuit as being “procurers” who brought victims to McCarrick at the house on the Jersey Shore, where he assigned sleeping arrangements, chose his victims, and paired victims with other clerics.

McCarrick served as auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of New York and Archbishop of Newark, and was handpicked by Pope John Paul II  to serve as Archbishop of Washington, D.C., in the 2000s before multiple allegations of child sexual abuse emerged.