LOS ANGELES (CA)
Los Angeles Times
By Caitlin Liu, Times Staff Writer
Prosecutors filed misdemeanor charges Friday against a man who handcuffed himself to Cardinal Roger M. Mahony's chair during a recent Sunday Mass to protest the archdiocese's handling of the priest sex abuse scandal.
Victim advocates said they were outraged by the charges against James C. Robertson, who contends he was abused.
Robertson, 58, of Mount Washington, has sued the church, alleging he was molested by two Catholic brothers at a Gardena high school during the 1960s. He faces up to 1½ years in jail and $2,000 in fines on charges of trespassing and disrupting a religious service.
"It's unbelievable," said Steven Sanchez, the Los Angeles director of Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests. "For the last five or six decades, priests have gone and confessed to Cardinal Mahony or his predecessors that they were molesting kids, and all this time, Cardinal Mahony and his predecessors could not find the LAPD's phone number … until [Robertson] makes a silent protest."