KENTUCKY
Cincinnati Post
By Paul A. Long
Post staff reporter
Shepherdsville attorney Bill Wilson recalls sitting in the courtroom in rural Bullitt County one recent afternoon, barely paying attention through the long docket, as Judge John Potter listened patiently to the drawn-out arguments of two lawyers in a divorce case.
Suddenly, Potter looked up and fixed the pair with a steely gaze. In his cultured southern voice, he asked, "What's really going on here?"
It was typical Potter, said Wilson, best known to Northern Kentuckians as one of the men who defended admitted murderer Adele Craven.
"You can't bamboozle him," he said. "You do so at your own peril."
Potter's challenging nature was on full display Thursday in Boone Circuit Court, when he unexpectedly put the brakes on the Diocese of Covington's record-setting $120 million settlement with victims of priestly sexual abuse. It wasn't that Potter found anything suspicious or dubious about the settlement. He just thought it was incomplete, and questioned the characterization of its being worth $120 million.
The insurance companies aren't yet on board, he said. Only the $40 million the diocese has pledged is available now.
"I do take issue with the description given the settlement," he said, the pitch of his voice keening from thin to gravely.
"There is no $120 million settlement to receive preliminary approval. There is, at most, a $40 million fund."
Posted by kshaw at June 13, 2005 06:09 PM