Connecticut – from www.news.aol.com – A group of people who claim they were molested by a Connecticut doctor have filed suit against the Hartford Archdiocese, claiming that the Catholic church bears part of the burden for letting Dr. George Reardon work for decades at a church-affiliated hospital despite complaints, according to The Hartford Courant.

The suit, filed Wednesday by 49 people, contends that since two nuns oversaw the hospital during Reardon’s tenure there, Reardon was not only working for the hospital but the arcdiocese as well. One of the nuns served on the research committee that oversaw Reardon’s research.

“There is no way for the diocese not to have known the extreme danger Reardon posed to the children in the hospital,” read a law firm’s press release.

Joel Faxon, an attorney in the case, told local station WTNH that “Reardon was not a priest but you know, he had a very close relationship obviously with the hospital, with the archdiocese; it controlled the hospital at that time.”

Officials with the St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center said they were unaware of any allegations against Reardon before 1993, when state officials attempted to revoke his medical license, the newspaper reported. The doctor died five years later.

But according to WTNH, a child molestation complaint was filed against Reardon as early as 1970.

In 2007, the owners of Reardon’s former home turned up tens of thousands of pornographic slides of children, as well as 100 movie reels.

“The photographs suggest he may have abused 500 children,” the newspaper reported.

In a related suit, 135 people are seeking damages from St. Francis, WTNH reported.

The Hartford Archdiocese had no comment to the newspaper or the TV station.