The Archdiocese of Philadelphia will pay $3.5 million to settle a civil case alleging a now-deceased priest sexually assaulted a teenage boy nearly two decades ago, and church officials knew of similar reports about the priest dating back to the 1970s, attorneys for the victim announced Wednesday.

The plaintiff was a 14-year-old student in religious classes at St. Katherine of Siena Parish in Wayne when the sexual assault occurred in 2006, his attorneys said. They said Monsignor John Close assaulted the boy after hearing his confession. The plaintiff, now 30, reported the episode in 2018. Many survivors of child sexual abuse do not report the abuse until years later.

Close died in 2018. Attorneys for the plaintiff say the archdiocese knew Close was a danger to children in the 1970s, after a priest reported teenage boys were sleeping overnight in Close’s room. Close was reassigned. Other alleged victims have come forward, attorneys said.

"We deeply regret the pain suffered by any survivor of child sexual abuse and have a sincere desire to help victims on their path to healing," Kenneth A. Gavin, spokesperson for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, said in a statement.

The church hierarchy denies knowing about the plaintiff’s allegation prior to Close’s death, and reported it to law enforcement after it was brought forward by the attorneys, an archdiocese spokesperson said in a statement.

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Close was ordained in 1969 and was placed in a variety of parishes and schools until he was put on administrative leave, with priestly faculties restricted, in 2011. He retired in 2012.

Attorneys for the plaintiff assert in court filing that a 2011 grand jury's report — which examined whether the diocese had changed its internal practices of moving priests accused of sexual abuse and not reporting the allegations to law enforcement — prompted church officials to reevaluate earlier reports about Close, resulting in his publicly-disclosed administrative leave that year. The archdiocese did not immediately say why Close was placed on leave at that time.

The lawsuit was settled ahead of trial.

In 2018, a grand jury found that hundreds of Roman Catholic priests in Pennsylvania molested more than 1,000 children — and possibly many more — since the 1940s, and senior church officials systematically covered up the abuse.

The report put the number of abusive clergy at more than 300. In nearly all of the cases, the statute of limitations had run out, meaning criminal charges could not be filed. More than 100 of the priests are dead, and many others are retired or have been dismissed from the priesthood or put on leave.

Seven of the state’s eight dioceses launched victim compensation funds following the grand jury report. The funds were open to claims for a limited time. The Archdiocese of Philadelphia has paid $78.5 million to 438 claimants, as of a 2022 report.

Lawmakers in Pennsylvania sought a two-year window for child sexual abuse survivors to file otherwise outdated lawsuits over their claims, but a partisan fight in the Legislature kept the proposal bottled up with no resolution in sight.

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders quietly funneled $200,000 from his campaign's coffers to his wife's nonprofit institute, which appears to do very little work and pays six figures worth of compensation to her son, Fox News Digital has found.

The independent senator's committee cut two $100,000 checks to the Sanders Institute for reported charitable contributions in January and March, its Federal Election Commission records show. The expenditures are the largest from the Sanders campaign to any entity this election cycle.

The senator's wife, Jane O'Meara Sanders, and stepson, David Driscoll, co-established the Sanders Institute in 2017 to act as a think tank to promote progressive voices, the Washington Post wrote at its launch. 

"The purpose is to revitalize democracy in the support of progressive institutions," Jane Sanders told the Post. "Our feeling is at our point in time, our country is at a crossroads, and people are engaged in a political process that can be opaque."

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"A vital democracy requires an informed electorate, civil discourse, and bold thinking," she continued. "So we put together this team to focus on issues, but not in a partisan way, not in a way that just focuses on the latest crazy thing. It will not be about Trump; it will be about the issues facing the country."

Just two years after its launch, in 2019, the institute announced it would suspend operations as Sen. Sanders sought the Democratic nomination for president to avoid the "appearance of impropriety" and presumably to take away a line of attack from his rivals over its money.

The institute has since quietly resumed operations while seemingly sidestepping media attention. Its latest publicly available tax forms from 2021 show the nonprofit burnt nearly 40% of its donations on salaries while appearing to conduct minimal work and having very few identifiable accomplishments. 

The tax documents indicate that the progressive lawmaker's stepson is the big winner of the operation. In 2021, the institute raised $716,618 and drove $257,000 into wages, including $152,653 in salary and other compensation to Driscoll, who acts as its executive director. He identifies the role as his primary job on his LinkedIn profile after previously working outside the political world as the global director of team and media for Burton Snowboards.

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In 2021, the institute also reported spending $159,885 on developing The Timeline Project, which they described as a "policy-focused resource based on Bernie Sanders work over four decades" that would be one of the "key pilars [sic] of the website." Additionally, they disbursed nearly $89,000 for a news website, an identical amount for social media and content creation, and $17,765 for a gathering they had to cancel due to the pandemic. 

The institute, however, appears to have little to show for the money it drove into its projects. Nowhere on its website is a "policy-focused resource" as described for its top program expense, and its blog posts from its fellows are primarily cross-posted from other sources. 

Its YouTube page has uploaded just two videos this year, both of which are quick messages from their fellows, including Washington Democratic Rep. Pramila Jayapal. Its profile on X, formerly Twitter, also mainly appears to push outside news articles and opinion pieces from its fellows.

And despite Jane Sanders' insistence she wanted to support other progressive organizations at the time of its launch, her institute has failed to do so – at least monetarily. The nonprofit reported no grants to other liberal groups in its tax records from 2021.

The Sanders Institute also does not disclose its donors on its tax forms. Despite this, Fox News Digital has identified its primary cash sources from the year of its most recent documents.

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A search of FEC records shows that Sen. Sanders' 2020 presidential campaign sent $350,000 to the institute in April 2021. A nonprofit called Wend II Inc added $250,000 to build "content capacity" that year, according to their own tax forms. Wend II Inc's director is James M. Walton, the son of James Carr Walton, one of the wealthiest businessmen in the world and an heir to the Walmart fortune.

The two donations accounted for roughly 84% of the $716,000 the Sanders Institute raked in throughout 2021.

The Sanders Institute, meanwhile, has previously come under the spotlight over its operations from local outlets. 

In 2018, VTDigger reported that the think tank had little to show during its first year, including sparse original content. They also found that much of it was recycled from other sources, much like it remains today. 

Sen. Sanders' campaign and the Sanders Institute did not respond to Fox News Digital's inquiries by press time.