NEW YORK
The New York Times
By ANDY NEWMAN
Published: March 15, 2005
A Catholic official whose private law practice was publicly censured has stepped down as head of the New York archdiocese's program to protect children from sexual abuse, a church spokesman said yesterday.
The official, Robert G. Whiteman, director of the archdiocese's Safe Environment Program, resigned near the beginning of this month and has also quit his post as deacon of his church in White Plains, said Joseph Zwilling, the spokesman for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York. The departure, Mr. Zwilling said, was for "personal and health reasons."
Last November, The New York Times reported that Mr. Whiteman was censured in 1996 on six misconduct charges, among them a charge that he had mishandled $5,000 of a client's settlement money. Mr. Whiteman received a medium-level reprimand from a panel of judges that disciplines lawyers, for conduct "involving fraud, deceit, dishonesty or misrepresentation," court records show. The archdiocese said that it learned of Mr. Whiteman's history only when it was contacted by The Times for that article.
Mr. Zwilling said yesterday that after learning of Mr. Whiteman's disciplinary record in November, the archdiocese, which had named him to the post six weeks earlier, "decided that he would continue on as director," and that his recent resignation was unrelated to the censure.
Posted by kshaw at March 14, 2005 10:40 PM