NEW YORK
Newsday
BY CAROL EISENBERG
STAFF WRITER
December 16, 2005
A Newark priest has sued New York Cardinal Edward Egan and several other top church officials for $5 million, contending that he was terminated as a school director in 2003 for speaking out against bishops' cover-ups of clergy sex abuse.
The lawsuit, filed Tuesday by the Rev. Robert Hoatson in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, also alleges that Egan, along with Newark Archbishop John J. Myers and Albany Bishop Howard Hubbard, are "active homosexuals," who protected predatory priests out of fear those men might reveal their own secrets.
While the suit claims that Hoatson "has personal knowledge" of the prelates' sexual activity, it provides no evidence to back that up. Hoatson's lawyer, John A. Aretakis, said Thursday several priests have agreed to provide "first-hand evidence of the sexual proclivities of the men we have mentioned when they are subpoenaed and put under oath."
Joseph Zwilling, a spokesman for Egan, dismissed the allegations as "not only false, but libelous and malicious. There's not a word of truth to this."