*
(At the same time the priest who was supposed to be civilly committed was released from prison, the Supreme Court of Illinois denied claims for molestation from the period of time the priest was perpetrating. It started 9/24/2009 at about 11 AM PST. The world works in strange ways.)
"Convicted pedophile priest Fred Lenczycki was set free today in DuPage County, but will continue his sex offender treatment as an outpatient," reads a press report.
"The Court admits the legal sufficiency of the complaint, but asserts that some affirmative matter defeats the plaintiff’s claim," reads the decision on Belleville released within minutes the same day.
In other words, too bad, crime victims, you obviously aren't lobbying hard enough. The Church gets a walk even though they allowed pedophiles to get to you for decades, because when you crime victims were in your twenties, you didn't take legal action.
And the pedophile priest gets a walk with electronic bracelets and other monitoring ... at least this priest has a police record and IS on the registries. Now about those other 4,500 or so.
The state of Illinois allows pedophiles to continue to thrive and displays judicial ignorance of how the mind works. Cases against the Church for pedophilia across the country prove that it takes decades for victims of child sex crimes to come forward, especially when the perpetrator is wearing a collar and convincing you as a child he's somehow connected to God.
How ideal for a criminal. Your victim will not be able to report you until the SOL runs out. That's statute of limitations as well as s-- outta luck.
More from the decision the Supreme Court of Illinois dismissed September 24, 2009:
"The pleadings and supporting documents in this case indicate that when plaintiff was 14 years old, he was sexually molested by defendant Kenneth Roberts, a Catholic priest. At the time of the molestation.
"Father Roberts was spending a week at the school as a guest lecturer."
Father Roberts was allowed to speak to the children on sex education even though the church knew he had previously engaged in "sexual abuse of children, including a boy in Dallas, Texas."
The former flight attendant, Father Robert was a popular author in the 1970s. Titles of some of his books are:
From Playboy to Priest
Pray it Again Sam
Nobody Calls it Sin Anymore.
The popular priest was perpetrating on little boys and writing those books, and today the Court rules for the Church... again.
What about the instution's responsibility, not for this one 14-year old victim, but for turning predators like this loose on the communities.
To this day, the church controls the courts and the media, and is getting off practically free for turning sexual predators loose on parish families for decades. The Roman Catholic Church will replace money spent on settlements, just as fast as they are replacing their reputation as a benevolent church.
And as of the same morning, a perpetrator priest from Joliet is out on the streets of Illinois, near Chicago.
This is the priest who the courts assured us would be "civilly committed" in early 2008 after his sentence was served, because he is a perennial sex offender.
Here is how Illinois solved that problem, from Thursday's news stories:
Lenczycki was due to be paroled 3.5 years ago after serving part of a five-year prison term for inappropriately touching three boys at a Hinsdale church.
A month before his release date, prosecutors filed paperwork to have him civilly committed beyond his prison term as a sexually violent person.
Then, July 9, the court ruled he could be released under a strict plan that includes dozens of conditions, such as electronic monitoring, weekly counseling, polygraph tests and sex offender registration, to name a few.
He had admitted molesting 31 boys, ages 9 to 17, while serving in six churches during a 25-year span until 1999, when he took a forced retirement.
The first few crimes involved three boys at Ss. Peter and Paul Catholic Church in Naperville until 1975. At his next assignment in Romeoville, two other accusers said they were molested. Lenczycki later nappropriately touched as many as 14 boys at St. Isaac Jogues Catholic Church in Hinsdale. Other victims followed after he moved to California and Missouri.
HE HAD VICTIMS IN CALIFORNIA AND MISSOURI?
Was he at the Servants of the Paracletes treatment centers in San Bernardino and St. Louis, perhaps?
Lenczycki technically still is a priest and receives a pension, because the Vatican did not defrock him, but he cannot preside over Mass or perform any other official duties.
(He won’t miss a meal, he’ll never have to work more hours than he wants to, he’ll have people waiting on him, he’ll get treatment whenever something goes wrong medically or mentally. How many of his crime victims can say that? )
Here's a better story from Friday morning, lifted freely from Abuse Tracker:
Pedophile ex-priest is freed
WHEATON (IL)Naperville Sun
September 25, 2009
By BILL BIRD wbird@scn1.comWHEATON — Fred Lenczycki, a former Roman Catholic priest who served at SS Peter and Paul Church in Naperville and sexually abused as many as 30 boys in three states, was freed Thursday from DuPage County Jail.
Lenczycki, 65, was the first priest in the nation to be deemed a "sexually violent" person. He left DuPage County Circuit Court accompanied by a conditional release supervisor, after a judge approved an outpatient treatment plan for him.
Natalie Bauer, a spokeswoman for Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan, confirmed Thursday night Lenczycki had been released from custody and had registered as a sex offender.
Coming soon:
Report on last Tuesday's hearing in L.A. Superior Court, as only City of Angels can report it, with pictures ...
Posted by Kay Ebeling
Friday, September 25, 2009
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
2 Doyle letters: to CA Court re Mahony and to CofA re Baker post, plus today 6PM Central on KCTU, guest is Arthur Baselice
*
(We report what you will not read in any corporate media outlet.)
Thursday Sept. 24 at 6PM Central, Arthur Baselice tells of pursuing his son's perpetrator, Charles Newman, (UPDATE: Don't know what happened, but it's past 4:00 and the program is not airing.) - through Philadelphia courts. Watch online here: and you can call in to the program live while it's happening at 866-905-8855. The show, Educating to End Abuse, airs from KCTU, Wichita, Kansas, third Thursday each month. Like last August, City of Angels will run a loose transcript soon after the show.
Tom Doyle sent two emails to City of Angels recently that we are posting here, one with the letter Doyle sent to the California Supreme Court about the L.A. Archdiocese's bending truth to influence justice. Then the canon lawyer dashed off a second email after reading the September 21st post here, with bizarre quotes from a Donald Steier brief defending pedophile priest Michael Baker for Cardinal Roger Mahony. Here is what Doyle had to say first about Steier et al:
Dear City of Angels: Try looking at it this way. Steier, Hennigan, Woods and the other lawyers who work for the archdiocese are not stupid. They have no doubt figured out that Roger is the undisputed monarch and the most important, if not the only important figure in the drama. The accused priests and their files are a kind of by-product.
They are the reason for the challenge to Roger's power, image, control and equilibrium. He found out years ago that the power card doesn't work with the victims and their attorneys. They (or at least most of them) have something the Cardinal does not ... integrity!
There may be a few among the victims' attorneys who are lacking a bit in the integrity dept. but on the whole the attorneys are committed to something Roger and his crew are not committed to ... truth.
The victims have not bowed to Roger's so-called power. They aren't impressed with the mythology he uses to prop himself up and they aren't going away. So it's a matter of fighting it out in court. The longer Roger's lawyers can keep the game going the more money they make. Since Roger is the king of the archdiocese he can do whatever he wants with the millions of dollars donated by the unsuspecting "faithful."
Who suffers? The victims and those who love and support them. In spite of the PR hype that Roger's team churns out, nobody in the archdiocesan control center cares a hoot about the men and women whose lives the clergy have trashed and whose lives the narcissistic Cardinal continues to make miserable.
People of integrity, especially the victims, get furious with the outlandish statements of Roger's Public Relations mouthpiece but its not worth the effort to get mad at him. He's like a tape deck ... put a tape in and he plays back whatever is on it. In the archdiocese he no doubt gets paid decent dollars to keep up the barrage of loonie fairy tales about Roger and his cabal.
If the Mormons, or Enron or SNAP for that matter paid him enough he'd switch sides in a heartbeat.
All this being so, these lawyers know that they are sitting in front of a slot machine and that every time they pull the handle they get a flood of cash ... it doesn't stop. Roger will keep paying their sky-high hourly fees and they will keep churning out the increasingly bizarre defenses ... not to protect the rights of the accused priests but to keep the spigot open.
Maybe someday someone with writing skills will gather all the lunacy the church lawyers have spewed out and publish it as some sort of a caricature of the American legal system, injected with sociopathic toxicity from organized Catholicism. It could be a kind of amalgam of Disney and Stephen King ... Mickey Mouse and the Predator team up to take on the Kingdom of Light.
**********
Doyle was responding to this post: Monday, September 21, 2009, Click headline for the whole story:
Baker may still offend as ‘lewd fondling does not require an erection,’ reads pedophile priest 5th Amendment plea, hearing tomorrow
*By Kay Ebeling
Because he might commit more sex crimes in the future, Michael Baker cannot release his answers in interrogatories about past sex crimes, according to a Defense motion be heard in L.A. Superior Court Tuesday morning. Baker's age is not relevant, reads the motion, because “Lewd touching with the hands does not require the ability to achieve an erection.”Just when you think the you've read the most outrageous argument ever by an attorney defending a pedophile priest, something like Defense Motion for Protective Order by Donald Steier slaps you in the face. Steier is asking Superior Court Judge Emilie Elias to keep all discovery documents in the upcoming Luis C civil case regarding Baker secret until trial.
*****************
DOYLE's RESPONSE to HENNIGAN:
Below Doyle writes to the Supreme Court of California about a letter from L.A. Archdiocese attorneys to the Court that we quoted in this post at CofA from Tuesday, August 11, 2009:
Sworn Enemies of Catholic Church got CA law amended, then he settled in 2007 due to prejudice and bad publicity, Mahony claims in letter to Court
By Kay Ebeling
Cardinal Roger Mahony understood that the cases settled in 2007 were going to be the last lawsuits about sex crimes in California Archdioceses, his lawyer claims in an April letter to the state's highest court. "Irrespective of merits," the letter states, the L.A. Archdiocese settled all 510 claims in 2007 because plaintiffs were creating bad publicity and prejudice against the Church.
***************
DOYLE WROTE TO THE CA COURT:
September 8, 2009
The Honorable Ronald M. George, Chief Justice
California Supreme Court
350 McAllister Street
San Francisco, CA 94102
Quarry v The Roman Catholic Bishop of Oakland
Case Number S171382
RE: Letter from Hennigan, Bennett and Dorman, April 21, 2009
Dear Justice George,
I very recently had the opportunity to read the above-cited letter, signed by Lee Potts, apparently of the firm of Hennigan, Bennett and Dorman. I enclose a copy of this letter for your reference.
I am writing in reference to certain statements in the letter which are factually incorrect and others that are phrased in such a way so as to drastically distort the truth of the matter. This letter and the case it refers to are grounded in the sexual abuse of minors by Roman Catholic clergy. My interest in this matter is grounded in the fact that I am a Catholic priest and a Canon lawyer. I have served as a pastoral minister and counselor to victims of Catholic clergy sexual abuse throughout the United States for 25 years. I have also served as a consultant and expert witness in several hundred civil and criminal legal actions in secular courts throughout this country. In particular, I have been a consultant and expert witness in many Catholic clergy sexual abuse cases throughout the State of California since 2002. I have had extensive contact with the victims, with their families, their counselors and their attorneys.
The first statement I wish to address as being untrue is in reference to the legislation passed which allowed time-barred claims. The author of the letter says “In California, ‘sworn enemies of the Catholic Church’ helped draft and secure passage of legislation to revive otherwise time-barred claims against employers of abusers. Although the statute was worded in neutral terms, the target of the legislation in floor debates and committee reports was always the Roman Catholic Church.”
This statement is completely erroneous. Those who worked for the passage of the legislation in question were hardly “sworn enemies of the Catholic Church.” The proponents of the legislation included persons, attorneys and non-attorneys, who had extensive experience dealing with the victims of sexual abuse. The perpetrators were clergy and lay persons. One of the strongest motivating factors in urging the legislation was and remains the clinically demonstrated fact that the vast majority of sexual abuse victims are psychologically unable to publicly disclose their abuse and consequently seek any form of help including judicial relief, for periods of time that generally run between 20 and 30 years.
The push for new legislation was no doubt influenced by the state-wide revelation that hundreds of Catholic clerics had sexually abused thousands of minors over the years and that these abusers had, in most cases, been sheltered by their bishops. Exposing the existence of widespread criminal behavior by Catholic priests is certainly not evidence that those who demand accountability and justice are “sworn enemies of the Catholic Church.”
In practice the official Church spokespersons, both clerical and lay, habitually try to label any criticism of clerics or Church behavior as “anti-Catholic” or “Catholic bashing.” This is nothing more than a crude attempt to shift the blame for wrong-doing or criminal behavior from the perpetrators to the victims. In the 25 years that I have been directly involved in this issue I have seen Church officials and their attorneys defame, slander, devalue and threaten victims, victims’ families, their attorneys, their supporters and those who have advocated for them. All of this was done in the name of “defending the Church.’
The target of floor debates was not “always the Catholic Church.” This statement grossly distorts the truth. The reality in 2002 was that several hundred Catholic clergy perpetrators had been uncovered along with clear evidence of systematic cover-up by Catholic cardinals, archbishops and bishops. The Catholic Church was the most visible offender but certainly not a target of unjust criticism.
The letter describes the numbers of cases reported as a result of the legislative change as if this were proof of a campaign to defame and bankrupt the Catholic Church. The fact is that over 800 cases were surfaced in which Catholic clergy were involved. The investigation into these cases revealed that in nearly every case sufficient evidence was available to proceed. The numbers speak for themselves. There were many cases because there had been an astounding number of clergy sexual abusers. The courts only responded to what was already in existence. The victims did not make up stories and their attorneys did not make up fictitious cases.
The fourth page contains a statement about media attention: “That pressure is necessarily exacerbated as the number of cases reaches into the hundreds and the Defendants are relentlessly held up to public scorn, ridicule and contempt by mass media.” This is an overly histrionic dramatization of the facts. The Catholic Church and its clerics and bishops are not above the law. The high degree of trust demanded by them and placed in them is viciously betrayed by sexual abuse. The bishops appear to want the media to portray them as victims. Any scorn, ridicule or contempt is the direct result of the harsh reality of the widespread nature of clergy sexual abuse.
The Church’s attorneys have reaped vast sums by using every tactic available and conjuring up others that had been otherwise unknown to create an endless series of barriers and delaying tactics that have succeeded in prolonging the legal process to outrageous lengths. The victims are the only ones who have suffered through this by being subjected to a seemingly endless process of mental and emotional torture.
The objections of the Catholic cardinals, archbishops and bishops, expressed by their attorneys, are based on their fundamental but totally erroneous belief that they are somehow above the laws of the State of California. This arrogant and unrealistic attitude has apparently blinded them to the essential fact of what this entire phenomenon is all about. It is not about money, or the image of the hierarchy or the power of bishops. It is about thousands of innocent, vulnerable children whose physical, emotional and spiritual lives have been savagely devastated by Catholic priests and bishops and their rightful search for compassion and justice.
Sincerely,
Rev. Thomas P. Doyle, J.C.D., C.A.D.C.
***************
Posted by Kay Ebeling, Producer, City of Angels Blog
****************************
Just to document how bad it gets, here is the Face of Kay in September 2009:
I'm still crying way too much.
Don't forget the PayPal high five campaign at left ... we pass the hat after each post, that's how it works ...
.
(We report what you will not read in any corporate media outlet.)
Thursday Sept. 24 at 6PM Central, Arthur Baselice tells of pursuing his son's perpetrator, Charles Newman, (UPDATE: Don't know what happened, but it's past 4:00 and the program is not airing.) - through Philadelphia courts. Watch online here: and you can call in to the program live while it's happening at 866-905-8855. The show, Educating to End Abuse, airs from KCTU, Wichita, Kansas, third Thursday each month. Like last August, City of Angels will run a loose transcript soon after the show.
Tom Doyle sent two emails to City of Angels recently that we are posting here, one with the letter Doyle sent to the California Supreme Court about the L.A. Archdiocese's bending truth to influence justice. Then the canon lawyer dashed off a second email after reading the September 21st post here, with bizarre quotes from a Donald Steier brief defending pedophile priest Michael Baker for Cardinal Roger Mahony. Here is what Doyle had to say first about Steier et al:
Dear City of Angels: Try looking at it this way. Steier, Hennigan, Woods and the other lawyers who work for the archdiocese are not stupid. They have no doubt figured out that Roger is the undisputed monarch and the most important, if not the only important figure in the drama. The accused priests and their files are a kind of by-product.
They are the reason for the challenge to Roger's power, image, control and equilibrium. He found out years ago that the power card doesn't work with the victims and their attorneys. They (or at least most of them) have something the Cardinal does not ... integrity!
There may be a few among the victims' attorneys who are lacking a bit in the integrity dept. but on the whole the attorneys are committed to something Roger and his crew are not committed to ... truth.
The victims have not bowed to Roger's so-called power. They aren't impressed with the mythology he uses to prop himself up and they aren't going away. So it's a matter of fighting it out in court. The longer Roger's lawyers can keep the game going the more money they make. Since Roger is the king of the archdiocese he can do whatever he wants with the millions of dollars donated by the unsuspecting "faithful."
Who suffers? The victims and those who love and support them. In spite of the PR hype that Roger's team churns out, nobody in the archdiocesan control center cares a hoot about the men and women whose lives the clergy have trashed and whose lives the narcissistic Cardinal continues to make miserable.
People of integrity, especially the victims, get furious with the outlandish statements of Roger's Public Relations mouthpiece but its not worth the effort to get mad at him. He's like a tape deck ... put a tape in and he plays back whatever is on it. In the archdiocese he no doubt gets paid decent dollars to keep up the barrage of loonie fairy tales about Roger and his cabal.
If the Mormons, or Enron or SNAP for that matter paid him enough he'd switch sides in a heartbeat.
All this being so, these lawyers know that they are sitting in front of a slot machine and that every time they pull the handle they get a flood of cash ... it doesn't stop. Roger will keep paying their sky-high hourly fees and they will keep churning out the increasingly bizarre defenses ... not to protect the rights of the accused priests but to keep the spigot open.
Maybe someday someone with writing skills will gather all the lunacy the church lawyers have spewed out and publish it as some sort of a caricature of the American legal system, injected with sociopathic toxicity from organized Catholicism. It could be a kind of amalgam of Disney and Stephen King ... Mickey Mouse and the Predator team up to take on the Kingdom of Light.
**********
Doyle was responding to this post: Monday, September 21, 2009, Click headline for the whole story:
Baker may still offend as ‘lewd fondling does not require an erection,’ reads pedophile priest 5th Amendment plea, hearing tomorrow
*By Kay Ebeling
Because he might commit more sex crimes in the future, Michael Baker cannot release his answers in interrogatories about past sex crimes, according to a Defense motion be heard in L.A. Superior Court Tuesday morning. Baker's age is not relevant, reads the motion, because “Lewd touching with the hands does not require the ability to achieve an erection.”Just when you think the you've read the most outrageous argument ever by an attorney defending a pedophile priest, something like Defense Motion for Protective Order by Donald Steier slaps you in the face. Steier is asking Superior Court Judge Emilie Elias to keep all discovery documents in the upcoming Luis C civil case regarding Baker secret until trial.
*****************
DOYLE's RESPONSE to HENNIGAN:
Below Doyle writes to the Supreme Court of California about a letter from L.A. Archdiocese attorneys to the Court that we quoted in this post at CofA from Tuesday, August 11, 2009:
Sworn Enemies of Catholic Church got CA law amended, then he settled in 2007 due to prejudice and bad publicity, Mahony claims in letter to Court
By Kay Ebeling
Cardinal Roger Mahony understood that the cases settled in 2007 were going to be the last lawsuits about sex crimes in California Archdioceses, his lawyer claims in an April letter to the state's highest court. "Irrespective of merits," the letter states, the L.A. Archdiocese settled all 510 claims in 2007 because plaintiffs were creating bad publicity and prejudice against the Church.
***************
DOYLE WROTE TO THE CA COURT:
September 8, 2009
The Honorable Ronald M. George, Chief Justice
California Supreme Court
350 McAllister Street
San Francisco, CA 94102
Quarry v The Roman Catholic Bishop of Oakland
Case Number S171382
RE: Letter from Hennigan, Bennett and Dorman, April 21, 2009
Dear Justice George,
I very recently had the opportunity to read the above-cited letter, signed by Lee Potts, apparently of the firm of Hennigan, Bennett and Dorman. I enclose a copy of this letter for your reference.
I am writing in reference to certain statements in the letter which are factually incorrect and others that are phrased in such a way so as to drastically distort the truth of the matter. This letter and the case it refers to are grounded in the sexual abuse of minors by Roman Catholic clergy. My interest in this matter is grounded in the fact that I am a Catholic priest and a Canon lawyer. I have served as a pastoral minister and counselor to victims of Catholic clergy sexual abuse throughout the United States for 25 years. I have also served as a consultant and expert witness in several hundred civil and criminal legal actions in secular courts throughout this country. In particular, I have been a consultant and expert witness in many Catholic clergy sexual abuse cases throughout the State of California since 2002. I have had extensive contact with the victims, with their families, their counselors and their attorneys.
The first statement I wish to address as being untrue is in reference to the legislation passed which allowed time-barred claims. The author of the letter says “In California, ‘sworn enemies of the Catholic Church’ helped draft and secure passage of legislation to revive otherwise time-barred claims against employers of abusers. Although the statute was worded in neutral terms, the target of the legislation in floor debates and committee reports was always the Roman Catholic Church.”
This statement is completely erroneous. Those who worked for the passage of the legislation in question were hardly “sworn enemies of the Catholic Church.” The proponents of the legislation included persons, attorneys and non-attorneys, who had extensive experience dealing with the victims of sexual abuse. The perpetrators were clergy and lay persons. One of the strongest motivating factors in urging the legislation was and remains the clinically demonstrated fact that the vast majority of sexual abuse victims are psychologically unable to publicly disclose their abuse and consequently seek any form of help including judicial relief, for periods of time that generally run between 20 and 30 years.
The push for new legislation was no doubt influenced by the state-wide revelation that hundreds of Catholic clerics had sexually abused thousands of minors over the years and that these abusers had, in most cases, been sheltered by their bishops. Exposing the existence of widespread criminal behavior by Catholic priests is certainly not evidence that those who demand accountability and justice are “sworn enemies of the Catholic Church.”
In practice the official Church spokespersons, both clerical and lay, habitually try to label any criticism of clerics or Church behavior as “anti-Catholic” or “Catholic bashing.” This is nothing more than a crude attempt to shift the blame for wrong-doing or criminal behavior from the perpetrators to the victims. In the 25 years that I have been directly involved in this issue I have seen Church officials and their attorneys defame, slander, devalue and threaten victims, victims’ families, their attorneys, their supporters and those who have advocated for them. All of this was done in the name of “defending the Church.’
The target of floor debates was not “always the Catholic Church.” This statement grossly distorts the truth. The reality in 2002 was that several hundred Catholic clergy perpetrators had been uncovered along with clear evidence of systematic cover-up by Catholic cardinals, archbishops and bishops. The Catholic Church was the most visible offender but certainly not a target of unjust criticism.
The letter describes the numbers of cases reported as a result of the legislative change as if this were proof of a campaign to defame and bankrupt the Catholic Church. The fact is that over 800 cases were surfaced in which Catholic clergy were involved. The investigation into these cases revealed that in nearly every case sufficient evidence was available to proceed. The numbers speak for themselves. There were many cases because there had been an astounding number of clergy sexual abusers. The courts only responded to what was already in existence. The victims did not make up stories and their attorneys did not make up fictitious cases.
The fourth page contains a statement about media attention: “That pressure is necessarily exacerbated as the number of cases reaches into the hundreds and the Defendants are relentlessly held up to public scorn, ridicule and contempt by mass media.” This is an overly histrionic dramatization of the facts. The Catholic Church and its clerics and bishops are not above the law. The high degree of trust demanded by them and placed in them is viciously betrayed by sexual abuse. The bishops appear to want the media to portray them as victims. Any scorn, ridicule or contempt is the direct result of the harsh reality of the widespread nature of clergy sexual abuse.
The Church’s attorneys have reaped vast sums by using every tactic available and conjuring up others that had been otherwise unknown to create an endless series of barriers and delaying tactics that have succeeded in prolonging the legal process to outrageous lengths. The victims are the only ones who have suffered through this by being subjected to a seemingly endless process of mental and emotional torture.
The objections of the Catholic cardinals, archbishops and bishops, expressed by their attorneys, are based on their fundamental but totally erroneous belief that they are somehow above the laws of the State of California. This arrogant and unrealistic attitude has apparently blinded them to the essential fact of what this entire phenomenon is all about. It is not about money, or the image of the hierarchy or the power of bishops. It is about thousands of innocent, vulnerable children whose physical, emotional and spiritual lives have been savagely devastated by Catholic priests and bishops and their rightful search for compassion and justice.
Sincerely,
Rev. Thomas P. Doyle, J.C.D., C.A.D.C.
***************
Posted by Kay Ebeling, Producer, City of Angels Blog
****************************
Just to document how bad it gets, here is the Face of Kay in September 2009:
I'm still crying way too much.
Don't forget the PayPal high five campaign at left ... we pass the hat after each post, that's how it works ...
.
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Church to Iraq Vets: Overseas in 2003? Too bad, dismiss the cases, bishops are above Federal law
*
By Kay Ebeling
Servicemenbers who were at war during the one-year window that allowed lawsuits against the Catholic Church in 2003 should not be allowed to proceed with lawsuits filed in 2008 regarding child molestation by priests, even though Federal law allows benefits such as delayed lawsuits for active duty personnel, attorneys for the Catholic Church argued in Los Angeles Superior Court Tuesday.
Both Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles and Bishop Robert Brom of San Diego want several civil cases regarding molestation thrown out, because the plaintiffs were overseas serving their country during the one-year window that opened to file civil lawsuits in 2003.
One plaintiff was and still is in Iraq, another adult victim of a peophile priest from Tuesday's hearing was in Guam and other farflung places on active duty during the one-year window in 2003, and did not file his suit until 20 months after leaving the military.
Catholic Church heirarchy try to bystep Federal law.
Renamed the Servicemen's Relief Act in 2003, this benefit for veterans has been a mainstay of American culture, almost unchanged since 1940. Now the Church wants to refuse veterans their right to file lawsuits, under California 340.1, now that they have returned from active duty. Americans go to great lengths to ensure men and women who serve their country do not lose their rights, especially when serving overseas during wartime.
Apparently Church hierarchy are above this law, like they are above the law that requires reporting of sex crimes against children to law enforcement.
In 2008 these plaintiffs filed civil suits, applicable to the one-year window in 2003, using their rights under the SCRA.
Now Mahony Brom and their teams of attorneys want the cases dismissed. Church heirarchy apparently feel it is more important to hold on to every million dollars they have, than to go along with the spirit and beliefs of nearly every other person in this country.
They are so out of touch.
American laws to provide for military personnel cross all political lines. Republicans AND Democrats stop fighting with each other when it comes to the issue of providing every benefit and right, and generously, to every person who serves our country, especially now in time of war.
That is, everyone agrees except Catholic Church heierarchy.
In court Tuesday attorneys for both the San Diego and Los Angeles Archdioceses fought hard and then harder to get the judge to dismiss cases filed by returning military personnel who missed the 2003 opportunity. The two attorneys argued on about 45 minutes, in spite of looks of aghast astonishment on the face of nearly everyone else in the courtroom, including the judge.
Their argument?
These servicemen waited too long. They should have filed their cases anyway, even if they were in the middle of fighting a war in 2003. They should have filed as soon as they stepped out of the plane from Iraq, no consideration at all for their circumstances.
I think even the most ardent Catholic will be astonished to find out these two Southern California bishops are willing to go against the spirit of this very country, and deny Iraq and Afghanistan veterans the right to delayed filing of lawsuits, because they were fighting a war for this country during the open time period.
The Catholic heirarchy will do anything to hold onto another two or three million dollars. The arguments in court today truly reveal the concerns of these church leaders. They care about their money and their assets, not their parishioners, or this country.
So why do we continue to afford these criminals extra respect and special dispensation?
The American Catholic bishops need to be prosecuted before they get any more praise.
Oh yes, Re Motion for Protective Order: After all that hooplah and hundreds of pages of motions back and forth, Judge Emilie Elias today waved away - with a slight wave of the hand - the motion to keep all evidence about Michael Baker in the Luis C case secret, like just one more irritating mosquito.
Judge Elias said to Donald Steier, "It's premature. You have to wait until the end of the case."
And of course he argued with her.
A more detailed post on Tuesday's hearing will follow shortly.
Meanwhile study up with me: On 19 December, 2003, President Bush has signed the “Servicemembers Civil Relief Act,” new legislation to help ease the economic and legal burdens on military personnel called to active duty status in Operation Iraqi Freedom. Authored by Veterans’ Affairs Committee Chairman Chris Smith, the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act updates and strengthens the previous Soldiers & Sailors Civil Relief Act of 1940 (SSCRA). For complete details, see Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, Simplified, and Servicemembers Civil Relief Act in Detail.
- Kay Ebeling
.
By Kay Ebeling
Servicemenbers who were at war during the one-year window that allowed lawsuits against the Catholic Church in 2003 should not be allowed to proceed with lawsuits filed in 2008 regarding child molestation by priests, even though Federal law allows benefits such as delayed lawsuits for active duty personnel, attorneys for the Catholic Church argued in Los Angeles Superior Court Tuesday.
Both Cardinal Roger Mahony of Los Angeles and Bishop Robert Brom of San Diego want several civil cases regarding molestation thrown out, because the plaintiffs were overseas serving their country during the one-year window that opened to file civil lawsuits in 2003.
One plaintiff was and still is in Iraq, another adult victim of a peophile priest from Tuesday's hearing was in Guam and other farflung places on active duty during the one-year window in 2003, and did not file his suit until 20 months after leaving the military.
Catholic Church heirarchy try to bystep Federal law.
Renamed the Servicemen's Relief Act in 2003, this benefit for veterans has been a mainstay of American culture, almost unchanged since 1940. Now the Church wants to refuse veterans their right to file lawsuits, under California 340.1, now that they have returned from active duty. Americans go to great lengths to ensure men and women who serve their country do not lose their rights, especially when serving overseas during wartime.
Apparently Church hierarchy are above this law, like they are above the law that requires reporting of sex crimes against children to law enforcement.
In 2008 these plaintiffs filed civil suits, applicable to the one-year window in 2003, using their rights under the SCRA.
Now Mahony Brom and their teams of attorneys want the cases dismissed. Church heirarchy apparently feel it is more important to hold on to every million dollars they have, than to go along with the spirit and beliefs of nearly every other person in this country.
They are so out of touch.
American laws to provide for military personnel cross all political lines. Republicans AND Democrats stop fighting with each other when it comes to the issue of providing every benefit and right, and generously, to every person who serves our country, especially now in time of war.
That is, everyone agrees except Catholic Church heierarchy.
In court Tuesday attorneys for both the San Diego and Los Angeles Archdioceses fought hard and then harder to get the judge to dismiss cases filed by returning military personnel who missed the 2003 opportunity. The two attorneys argued on about 45 minutes, in spite of looks of aghast astonishment on the face of nearly everyone else in the courtroom, including the judge.
Their argument?
These servicemen waited too long. They should have filed their cases anyway, even if they were in the middle of fighting a war in 2003. They should have filed as soon as they stepped out of the plane from Iraq, no consideration at all for their circumstances.
I think even the most ardent Catholic will be astonished to find out these two Southern California bishops are willing to go against the spirit of this very country, and deny Iraq and Afghanistan veterans the right to delayed filing of lawsuits, because they were fighting a war for this country during the open time period.
The Catholic heirarchy will do anything to hold onto another two or three million dollars. The arguments in court today truly reveal the concerns of these church leaders. They care about their money and their assets, not their parishioners, or this country.
So why do we continue to afford these criminals extra respect and special dispensation?
The American Catholic bishops need to be prosecuted before they get any more praise.
Oh yes, Re Motion for Protective Order: After all that hooplah and hundreds of pages of motions back and forth, Judge Emilie Elias today waved away - with a slight wave of the hand - the motion to keep all evidence about Michael Baker in the Luis C case secret, like just one more irritating mosquito.
Judge Elias said to Donald Steier, "It's premature. You have to wait until the end of the case."
And of course he argued with her.
A more detailed post on Tuesday's hearing will follow shortly.
Meanwhile study up with me: On 19 December, 2003, President Bush has signed the “Servicemembers Civil Relief Act,” new legislation to help ease the economic and legal burdens on military personnel called to active duty status in Operation Iraqi Freedom. Authored by Veterans’ Affairs Committee Chairman Chris Smith, the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act updates and strengthens the previous Soldiers & Sailors Civil Relief Act of 1940 (SSCRA). For complete details, see Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, Simplified, and Servicemembers Civil Relief Act in Detail.
- Kay Ebeling
.
Monday, September 21, 2009
Baker may still offend as ‘lewd fondling does not require an erection,’ reads pedophile priest 5th Amendment plea, hearing tomorrow
*
By Kay Ebeling
Because he might commit more sex crimes in the future, Michael Baker cannot release his answers in interrogatories about past sex crimes, according to a Defense motion be heard in L.A. Superior Court Tuesday morning. Baker's age is not relevant, reads the motion, because “Lewd touching with the hands does not require the ability to achieve an erection.”
Just when you think the you've read the most outrageous argument ever by an attorney defending a pedophile priest, something like Defense Motion for Protective Order by Donald Steier slaps you in the face. Steier is asking Superior Court Judge Emilie Elias to keep all discovery documents in the upcoming Luis C civil case regarding Baker secret until trial.
It is one of the more inventive mutilations of the Fifth Amendment yet by an attorney defending a predator priest. We have Steier asserting Baker's right to refuse to answer questions that may be self-incriminating some time in the future, since it is likely the pedophile will re-offend. It's a chilling reversal of Minority Report reasoning, and that was science fiction.
“This particular situation creates a real danger, that if defendant answers questions about past acts of sexual crimes, they will be admissible automatically in any future prosecution for a sexual offense.
“If Defendant were to be charged at any time in the future for a sexual offense not yet committed or alleged, any evidence of the sexual offenses contained in these complaints would be admissibe against him.
"Thus, his answers to interrogatories about past acts have a real potential to incriminate him in the future.
“The Fifth Amendment protects Defendant against such use of his testimony. It is clearly not impossible for him to be accused of a criminal act, whether he commits such an offense or not.
What about that erection?
“The gravamen of the allegations against him in the overwhelming majority of claims against Defendant in these cases involve alleged lewd touching with the hands, which does not require the ability to achieve an erection.
“Thus, defendant’s age is entirely irrelevant to the matter - and there has been no expert testimony to say that Defendant cannot possibly commit a sexual offense in the future.
Another slap in the face:
“Indeed, Plaintiffs, their attorneys, and other advocates have often recited the mantra, ‘Once a pedophile, always a pedophile.’
“Without debating the veracity of that cliché, it is clear that one cannot determine that it is impossible for Defendant to be charged with a sexual offense in the future. “
The hearing is tomorrow at 11 AM and CofA will be there, barring the unexpected…
Steier continued:
FREEDOM OF RELIGION
includes pedophilia?
Steier cites the “Penitent’s privilege,” where anything said in a practice like Confession where “the discipline or tenets of the denomination has a duty to keep those communication secret." He then says, “Some of those items within defendant’s personnel records include statements protected by that privilege.
”Huh? I
"If they're privileged and secret under tenets like Confession, what are they doing in his personnel file
I'm quoting myself above from below:
Church tap dances in Baker case to prevent discovery. Defendants include Mahony and the Paracletes. Hearing next week
*By Kay Ebeling
The Witness: It was Lent. Father Baker was on the right hand, I was on the other side of Father Mahony- I mean Cardinal Mahony was giving the Mass …
Steier also demolishes any reason regarding freedom of religion and a pedophile priest’s acts.
More from Steier:
“Although the ‘clergy cases’ have garnered much public attention, each case is, nevertheless, fundamentally merely a civil action between private litigants. “
“Defendant has been afforded many rights, and those rights may be affected by the conduct of the parties in this litigation.”
The case of pedophile priest Michael Baker and his right to secrecy is much like a 1986 case regarding abuse of private citizens by the police force, Coalition Against Police Abuse v. Superior Court in 1986.
Continuously Steier’s argument is nothing can be put in public until there is a trial.
Steier writes that in this age of the Internet, anything can be disseminated. So “private matters that may never be admitted at trial could become easily accessible to the public if this Court fails to control the use of material obtained during discovery.”
Okay, does this sound threatening to you?
“Attorneys may not continue legal employment if they know that the client is using the process to harass or maliciously injure anyone. In this case, publicly disclosing sensitive and privileged records that were accumulated in confidence is a terrible, extralegal means of injuring a priest that trusted the Diocese with his confidences.”
“A protective order to prevent extra judicial disclosure of discovery material is warranted to prevent abuse of the court’s process and oppression of individual parties and witnesses,”
He again cites the case where private documents concerning the police force were returned and not kept by plaintiffs after litigation.
FROM STEIER’S DECLARATION:
“I have known Father Doe 3 for over ten years and I represented him in prior criminal and civil matters.
“I currently represent him in Federal litigation and with respect to a criminal investigation.
“It is my understanding that Defendants Doe 1, 2, 4-7, 9-20, and Defendant DOE 8 created and / or maintains personnel records on its priests.
“Documents relating to canonical and legal claims, allegations, and actions are contained within a special personnel file, commonly referred to as a “confidential file.”
“Contemporaneously with filing this Motion for Protective Order, Defendant Doe 3 (Michael Baker) and I are responding to a Demand for Production of Documents, Set No. 1, propounded on or about May 6, 2009.”
HEY FOLKS, here Steier is describing the tap dance and other forms of obstruction of justice he has been doing re production of documents from L.A. Clergy Cases that in Baker’s case, half settled in Fall 2006, the rest July 2007.
Steier is still propounding to prevent release of those documents, now, post litigation.
Here is how the Church plans to respond to the May 2009 order to produce documents for Los Angeles plaintiffs:
“[Our] response will contain, among other things, various objections and assertions of privilege, including the attorney-client privilege, and the right against self incrimination, to the very same documents propounded to the Archdiocese, which documents are the subject of Defendant’s Motion for Protective Order.”
In other words don’t believe that they will cooperate after litigation is over, they never have before.
************************
Quotes of note from Plaintiffs’ Opposition to Motion for Protective Order:
"Specifically the sexual exploitation of parishioners by pastors with whom they relate poses a threat to public safety, peace or order that is seemingly as substantial as that posed by deceptive religious recruitment practices, and the state possesses at least as compelling an interest in discouraging such exploitation."
Not to mention the state’s interest in “Truth in legal proceedings.”
Also, writes the Manly / Stewart firm for Plaintiffs, it’s no point arguing that right to privacy in California argument: This from Roman Catholic Archbishop of Los Angeles v. Superior Court 2005
“There must be an accommodation by religious institutions to the rules of civil society, particularly when the state’s compelling interest in protecting children is in question.”
The First Amendment refers to the “freedom to Believe;” But the freedom to Act “remains subject to regulation for the protection of society.” Cal. 4th Appeals Court 2005
From Judge Haley Fromholz (who oversaw the Clergy Cases until December 2007, when Judge Emilie Elias took over)
“Unwarranted concealment of information from the public would be ill-advised.
“The Court notes the Archbishop’s public statement that ‘moving the healing and reconciliation process forward requires the fullest possible disclosure of what happened over the victims.
“The Victims deserve nothing less.” - 9.19.05 ruling by Fromholz on a different protective order motion in the clergy cases in 2005.
If they're worried about a jury pool, it’s irrelevant, no a better word is moot - “in light of the media exposure that has already been devoted to this case.”
Hmm.
Not enough media exposure, as far as I'm concerned, but enough for the Judge to rule that release of information is not going to have much more influence on the jury pool than the information that has already been released.
In this particular case with Luis C the following is especially poignant:
“Neither he nor his family were ever warned. Such warning could very well have prevented the abuse from ever occurring.”
“Gaining knowledge of Baker’s abuses and the archdiocese’s knowledge thereof is integral to Plaintiff’s healing.
"Neither the Archdiocese, nor DOE 3, have ever offered to willingly provide Plaintiff these documents and information, in order to help him understand the horrors to which he has been subjected.
“Plaintiff is being forced to engage in litigation in order to obtain this information, to help him understand how his abuse fits into the entire scope of the clergy abuse scandal.
To Help Him Understand
How his abuse fits into the entire scope of the clergy abuse scandal.
“Doe 3 (Father Michael Baker), arguably one of the most prolific and notorious sexual abusers to ever don a Roman collar, is currently serving a ten-year prison sentence, in part for brutally raping then-minor plaintiff over the course of several years.”
We'll see how things turn out at the hearing tomorrow.
By Kay Ebeling
Because he might commit more sex crimes in the future, Michael Baker cannot release his answers in interrogatories about past sex crimes, according to a Defense motion be heard in L.A. Superior Court Tuesday morning. Baker's age is not relevant, reads the motion, because “Lewd touching with the hands does not require the ability to achieve an erection.”
Just when you think the you've read the most outrageous argument ever by an attorney defending a pedophile priest, something like Defense Motion for Protective Order by Donald Steier slaps you in the face. Steier is asking Superior Court Judge Emilie Elias to keep all discovery documents in the upcoming Luis C civil case regarding Baker secret until trial.
It is one of the more inventive mutilations of the Fifth Amendment yet by an attorney defending a predator priest. We have Steier asserting Baker's right to refuse to answer questions that may be self-incriminating some time in the future, since it is likely the pedophile will re-offend. It's a chilling reversal of Minority Report reasoning, and that was science fiction.
“This particular situation creates a real danger, that if defendant answers questions about past acts of sexual crimes, they will be admissible automatically in any future prosecution for a sexual offense.
“If Defendant were to be charged at any time in the future for a sexual offense not yet committed or alleged, any evidence of the sexual offenses contained in these complaints would be admissibe against him.
"Thus, his answers to interrogatories about past acts have a real potential to incriminate him in the future.
“The Fifth Amendment protects Defendant against such use of his testimony. It is clearly not impossible for him to be accused of a criminal act, whether he commits such an offense or not.
What about that erection?
“The gravamen of the allegations against him in the overwhelming majority of claims against Defendant in these cases involve alleged lewd touching with the hands, which does not require the ability to achieve an erection.
“Thus, defendant’s age is entirely irrelevant to the matter - and there has been no expert testimony to say that Defendant cannot possibly commit a sexual offense in the future.
Another slap in the face:
“Indeed, Plaintiffs, their attorneys, and other advocates have often recited the mantra, ‘Once a pedophile, always a pedophile.’
“Without debating the veracity of that cliché, it is clear that one cannot determine that it is impossible for Defendant to be charged with a sexual offense in the future. “
City of Angels says, “What an Ipso facto ex post Minority Report wacko interpretation of law. It will be amazing if any court of law recognizes it.
The hearing is tomorrow at 11 AM and CofA will be there, barring the unexpected…
Steier continued:
FREEDOM OF RELIGION
includes pedophilia?
Steier cites the “Penitent’s privilege,” where anything said in a practice like Confession where “the discipline or tenets of the denomination has a duty to keep those communication secret." He then says, “Some of those items within defendant’s personnel records include statements protected by that privilege.
”Huh? I
"If they're privileged and secret under tenets like Confession, what are they doing in his personnel file
I'm quoting myself above from below:
Church tap dances in Baker case to prevent discovery. Defendants include Mahony and the Paracletes. Hearing next week
*By Kay Ebeling
The Witness: It was Lent. Father Baker was on the right hand, I was on the other side of Father Mahony- I mean Cardinal Mahony was giving the Mass …
Steier also demolishes any reason regarding freedom of religion and a pedophile priest’s acts.
This case is 'merely a civil action between private litigants'
In this case Steier is correct:
Thanks to sleeping law enforcement in U.S. Attorney’s office in Los Angeles
More from Steier:
“Although the ‘clergy cases’ have garnered much public attention, each case is, nevertheless, fundamentally merely a civil action between private litigants. “
“Defendant has been afforded many rights, and those rights may be affected by the conduct of the parties in this litigation.”
The case of pedophile priest Michael Baker and his right to secrecy is much like a 1986 case regarding abuse of private citizens by the police force, Coalition Against Police Abuse v. Superior Court in 1986.
Continuously Steier’s argument is nothing can be put in public until there is a trial.
Steier writes that in this age of the Internet, anything can be disseminated. So “private matters that may never be admitted at trial could become easily accessible to the public if this Court fails to control the use of material obtained during discovery.”
Okay, does this sound threatening to you?
“Attorneys may not continue legal employment if they know that the client is using the process to harass or maliciously injure anyone. In this case, publicly disclosing sensitive and privileged records that were accumulated in confidence is a terrible, extralegal means of injuring a priest that trusted the Diocese with his confidences.”
“A protective order to prevent extra judicial disclosure of discovery material is warranted to prevent abuse of the court’s process and oppression of individual parties and witnesses,”
He again cites the case where private documents concerning the police force were returned and not kept by plaintiffs after litigation.
FROM STEIER’S DECLARATION:
“I have known Father Doe 3 for over ten years and I represented him in prior criminal and civil matters.
“I currently represent him in Federal litigation and with respect to a criminal investigation.
“It is my understanding that Defendants Doe 1, 2, 4-7, 9-20, and Defendant DOE 8 created and / or maintains personnel records on its priests.
“Documents relating to canonical and legal claims, allegations, and actions are contained within a special personnel file, commonly referred to as a “confidential file.”
“Contemporaneously with filing this Motion for Protective Order, Defendant Doe 3 (Michael Baker) and I are responding to a Demand for Production of Documents, Set No. 1, propounded on or about May 6, 2009.”
HEY FOLKS, here Steier is describing the tap dance and other forms of obstruction of justice he has been doing re production of documents from L.A. Clergy Cases that in Baker’s case, half settled in Fall 2006, the rest July 2007.
Steier is still propounding to prevent release of those documents, now, post litigation.
Here is how the Church plans to respond to the May 2009 order to produce documents for Los Angeles plaintiffs:
“[Our] response will contain, among other things, various objections and assertions of privilege, including the attorney-client privilege, and the right against self incrimination, to the very same documents propounded to the Archdiocese, which documents are the subject of Defendant’s Motion for Protective Order.”
In other words don’t believe that they will cooperate after litigation is over, they never have before.
************************
Quotes of note from Plaintiffs’ Opposition to Motion for Protective Order:
"Specifically the sexual exploitation of parishioners by pastors with whom they relate poses a threat to public safety, peace or order that is seemingly as substantial as that posed by deceptive religious recruitment practices, and the state possesses at least as compelling an interest in discouraging such exploitation."
Not to mention the state’s interest in “Truth in legal proceedings.”
Also, writes the Manly / Stewart firm for Plaintiffs, it’s no point arguing that right to privacy in California argument: This from Roman Catholic Archbishop of Los Angeles v. Superior Court 2005
“There must be an accommodation by religious institutions to the rules of civil society, particularly when the state’s compelling interest in protecting children is in question.”
The First Amendment refers to the “freedom to Believe;” But the freedom to Act “remains subject to regulation for the protection of society.” Cal. 4th Appeals Court 2005
From Judge Haley Fromholz (who oversaw the Clergy Cases until December 2007, when Judge Emilie Elias took over)
“Unwarranted concealment of information from the public would be ill-advised.
“The Court notes the Archbishop’s public statement that ‘moving the healing and reconciliation process forward requires the fullest possible disclosure of what happened over the victims.
“The Victims deserve nothing less.” - 9.19.05 ruling by Fromholz on a different protective order motion in the clergy cases in 2005.
If they're worried about a jury pool, it’s irrelevant, no a better word is moot - “in light of the media exposure that has already been devoted to this case.”
Hmm.
Not enough media exposure, as far as I'm concerned, but enough for the Judge to rule that release of information is not going to have much more influence on the jury pool than the information that has already been released.
In this particular case with Luis C the following is especially poignant:
“Neither he nor his family were ever warned. Such warning could very well have prevented the abuse from ever occurring.”
Could well have prevented the abuse from ever occurring.
Actually the church could have stopped the abuse from occurring way back in 1940 something.
“Gaining knowledge of Baker’s abuses and the archdiocese’s knowledge thereof is integral to Plaintiff’s healing.
"Neither the Archdiocese, nor DOE 3, have ever offered to willingly provide Plaintiff these documents and information, in order to help him understand the horrors to which he has been subjected.
“Plaintiff is being forced to engage in litigation in order to obtain this information, to help him understand how his abuse fits into the entire scope of the clergy abuse scandal.
To Help Him Understand
How his abuse fits into the entire scope of the clergy abuse scandal.
“Doe 3 (Father Michael Baker), arguably one of the most prolific and notorious sexual abusers to ever don a Roman collar, is currently serving a ten-year prison sentence, in part for brutally raping then-minor plaintiff over the course of several years.”
We'll see how things turn out at the hearing tomorrow.
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