Drama: New witness tracks down Anderson as jury deliberates. New testimony shows Fresno Diocese must have withheld evidence

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“In discovery and at trial, there were no records of complaints or testimony of complaints of sexual abuse made to the Diocese before or during the time period of plaintiffs’ abuse.”

This is too good to wait until Tuesday: “Summary of New Evidence,” page 4 Heading 2 in the 2000 or so page document - Motion for a New Trial in Fresno - I'm reading over the weekend. Following is copied directly from the Brief:

The jury began its deliberations at approximately 11:30 AM on April 2, 2009. After deliberating for less than three hours, the jury had a question. Plaintiffs’ counsel, Jeff Anderson, was returning to the courtroom to respond to the question when he received a message from his office that a W Doe had called stating that he had information regarding the Santillan brothers.
Mr. Anderson returned the call, and spoke briefly with Mr. W Doe. (New witness is named in public papers, but asked to remain anonymous in news stories, so we are calling him W Doe.)

After responding to the jury’s question, and returning to his hotel, Mr. Anderson again called Mr. W Doe and Mr. W Doe informed him that he had been molested by Herdegen in the mid- to late- 1960s, and he had complained of the abuse.

According to Mr. W Doe, he started attending St. John’s Catholic School in Wasco in first grade in approximately 1962. When he was approximately 10 years old, he became an altar boy for Herdegen. Herdegen began molesting Mr. W Doe when Mr. W Doe was in the fifth grade, near the end of 1969, and Mr. W Doe told his mother about Herdegen’s conduct after a Saturday Mass.

The following Monday, Mr. W Doe’s mother took him to see the principal and head nun of St. John’s Catholic School Sister Vidaline. W Doe’s mother told him to tell Sister Vidaline about Herdegen’s condiuct and he did so.

On March 18, 2009, Mr W Doe received a call from his son who told him the Santillan brothers were “going to court” over Hergeden. Upon hearing this information, Mr. W Doe found articles on the internet about the trial and that trial counsel was an attorney named Jeff Anderson.

Mr. W Doe located an attorney named Jeff Anderson in Sacramento and called and left a message for him. He also sent Mr. Anderson an email through his website.

When W Doe did not receive any response to his voicemail or email messages, on Thursday April 2, 2009, W Doe called the Sacramento Jeff Anderson again. That Jeff Anderson told Mr W Doe that he did get the message but he was not the right Jeff Anderson. He explained that over the years he’d received calls that were intended for a Jeff Anderson in Minnesota.

W Doe looked up Jeff Anderson’s contact information in the Minnesota State Bar website and called his office in Minnesota. The message from his office was received by Mr. Anderson as he was returning to court to deal with the jury’s question, after the jury had begun deliberation in the case on April 2, 2009.

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ONE MORE IMPORTANT POINT

Diocese Apparently Withheld Evidence in Discovery and Bent Truth in Court Testimony

I don't want to wait until Tuesday to report:
From Page 7 (only 1993 to go…

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Directly copied from Motion for New Trial filed May 11 in Fresno Superior Court:

The Diocese produced no documented prior reports of abuse pertaining to Herdegen, despite being requested in Discovery to do so. In discovery and at trial there were no records of complaints of testimony of complaints of sexual abuse made to the Diocese before or during the time period of plaintiffs’ abuse.

This was the central issue raised by the Defendant at trial.

(The new witness) W Doe’s report to the Diocese about Herdegen’s misconduct supports George Santillan’s contential at trial that the Diocese frequently received reports of molestation that were either never documented or the documentation was “lost.”

Then on Page 6:

Evidence at the trial of this action demonstrated that the Diocese had a history of filing no document - or not retaining the documentation of - reports of sexual misconduct committed by its employees.

(Plaintiffs argued) The absence of documentation did not equate the absence of misconduct or the absence of notice.

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IN FACT:

No evidence of the 1967 W Doe’s report of Anthony Herdegen was found in the files turned over for Discovery

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The Diocese produced no documented prior reports of abuse pertaining to Herdegen, despite being requested in discovery to do so.

In discovery and at trial, there were no records of complaints or testimony of complaints of sexual abuse made to the Diocese before or during the time period of plaintiffs’ abuse.

Mr. W Doe’s testimony however changes all that.

Mr. W Doe’s declaration unequivocally demonstrates that a complaint was made to the Diocesse of Herdegen’s molesting a child by late 1967.

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Stay tuned. . .

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PS: Whoopee, did I get a bunch of PayPal clicks when we came back to City of Angels. If every reader every 3 months sent $5, I could probly travel all the way to Fresno to cover a trial...

New victim comes forward - Motion for New Trial in Fresno filed May 11th

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By Kay Ebeling
Los Angeles

Declaration by a new witness spurred attorneys to file a motion for a new trial in Fresno Superior Court May 11, 2009, on behalf of plaintiffs George and Howard Santillan. The 2000 or so page document arrived here at City of Angels HQ in Hollywood just moments ago and we will have full details and many documents scanned in for readers to click and enlarge when we are up full speed again next week.

A victim of Anthony Herdegen says he reported the sexual abuse to the Fresno Diocese in 1967.

In the March 2009 trial that ended with the jury awarding $0 to plaintiffs, the verdict was based on "whether the diocese knew or should have known of any sexual abuse by Herdegen before 1973."

"The discovery that the Diocese was in fact on notice of Herdegen's sexual misconduct by at least 1967 requires a new trial," reads a main heading of the brief.

Testimony of this new victim would have resulted in a different verdict, reads the brief - on the first page. Like I said there are about two thousand pages here, so City of Angels Lady is content with her Memorial Day Weekend plans. Scanning and scanning and WOW. I can't wait.

If you come to this site over the weekend, you can watch the post as it is being constructed, as we scan one piece of evidence after another up for people to view, from this public document. Much like we did last year with the Servants of the Paracletes Documents here And also here and other posts around late June 2008 here at City of angels.

Read here next week a full report on the Herdegen cases in Fresno.

Motion for new trial was filed by the law offices of Ray Boucher in LA, Laurence Drivon in Stockton, and Jeff Anderson in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Mas a leer a la semana que viene.

UPDATE: We are on hiatus until after Memorial Day. Enjoy. FYI, significant stories removed from LA City Buzz are now at City of Angels 11, festering.

Fired again: Examiner Dot Com bows to pressure from Church, eliminates my job as LA City Buzz

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By Kay Ebeling
Producer, City of Angels Network

So here I am back at City of Angels again. After a post I put up April 29th-30th, the L.A. Archdiocese "General Counsel" contacted Examiner Dot Com and pressured them to remove me from their site. So far I have not been able to get a copy of that letter. But I was fired from Examiner Dot Com this afternoon. Oh well, that means:

City of Angels is Back.

After getting a letter from a Church Attorney, Examiner Dot Com decided they also did not like my side quips and snide remarks and as a matter of fact, they don't approve of on any of the stories I wrote in the last few months. Examiner Los Angeles, which promotes stories such as "Actress Reveals Chubby Belly in Bikini" with pictures stolen from copyrighted sites, found my stories about criminals being sleezebags to be "not in line with our guidelines."

Meanwhile Monsignor Richard Loomis is still listed as Pastor of Sts. Felicitas and Perpetua Church in San Marino, pictured here, and Loomis was supposed to be the focus of the April 29 stories that got me fired. Loomis, when he was known as Brother Becket in the late 1960s, had one good enough allegation against him to be one of the priests named in the 510 civil cases settled against the Los Angeles Archdiocese July 2007.

Monsignor Loomis has been on "leave" for more than two years and no one at the church can say where he's gone, as I caught the nun saying on video that was posted with the April 29-30 post. Loomis is still listed as pastor of Sts. Felicitas & Perpetua Church in San Marino.

Unfortunately I got sidetracked and went on a rant about a nun at the church being dressed in a way that I felt was too provocative for a nun, when I wrote that April 29 and 30th post. I still think it was a genuine observation.

It seems nuns in that church have gone full circle from 30 years ago wearing a habit, to today wearing anything they find at Target, cropped short tight dresses that barely fit, no matter how revealing. Maybe I should not have actually used the word sl--ty to describe the way I think the nun looked, but to me that word was an accurate description of her outfit.

Plus it still bothers me very much that a nun dressed like that was spending time in that room behind the altar with the priests before Mass that day at Sts. Felicitas and Perpetua Church in San Marino. I stand by what I said, even though it got me fired.

A lot of kids were raped in those rooms behind altars in Catholic Churches. It's not like they are some kind of sanctuary or anything. . .

I will try to find out more about Richard Loomis aka Brother Becket. I am driven now to find out more about Loomis.

And it feels good to be back in this site writing again. This template is so much friendlier.

The Los Angeles Archdiocese provides security for Sts. Felicitas Church, I recognized the jackets the guards were wearing when I was there last month, and the L.A. Archdiocese is apparently behind the pressure to remove me from my L.A. City Buzz Examiner post.

Oh well, in the long run, this means I can put all my focus on stories here and our pursuit of justice as adult vicims of pedophile priest sex crimes. In the end I think I am better off here.

Although I will miss that extra $80 a month or so.

So

Yes
That means once again, I'm asking my readers to Click the PayPal button in the top left column and put cash on my Account.

To help pay for the work time and resources needed to produce -

Ta Da
City of Angels 5,
at
City of Angels Network
Now back in action

I am really proud of this site. And glad to be back.

Oh well, we'll have a new post here at City of Angels 5 within about two days. . .

- Kay Ebeling
Producer, City of Angels Network

PS: Been fired so many times, I start making plans for unemploiyment before it is even official:

I was already taking a break, when I got fired from Examiner Dot Com. Funny thing is, I was taking the break because I was considering moving the ongoing coverage of sex crimes in the Catholic Church back to City of Angels anyways.

The entire time I was at Examiner, I had to produce stories on other topics. As a result, in the last few months, I lost my momentum in the pursuit of truth concerning the epidemic of pedophilia in the Catholic Church.

It's good to be able to say that.

There was an epidemic of pedophilia in the Catholic Church and it has not been eradicated.

Instead they want to eradicate the crime victims.

Anyway, Examiner dot com was only paying me $3 to $4 dollars a day. Hardly worth being harrassed about my content. And harrassed about being too creative with my fonts. I mean...

So, I'm ba-a-a-ack