Assets Still Can Be Seized, Lawyer in Sexual-Abuse Case Says
By Beth Miller and Sean O'Sullivan
The News Journal [Delaware]
April 5, 2007
http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070405/NEWS/704050360/-1/NEWS01
Attorneys this week say they are having difficulty finding the Rev. Edward J. Smith, the Norbertine priest against whom a federal jury awarded $41 million in damages for allegedly sexually abusing a former student at Archmere Academy.
Thomas Neuberger, representing Navy Cmdr. Kenneth J. Whitwell, said he has been trying this week to serve papers to Smith about a May 4 deposition during which Smith's financial records are to be reviewed.
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| The Rev. Edward Smith had been living at the Norbertine priory in Middletown until last week. Officials there said they don't know where he is. |
But Neuberger said his process server, retired state trooper Chris Foraker, went to the Middletown priory where Smith, 60, was said to have lived with the Norbertine order, to his late mother's home in Philadelphia, and to the Daylesford Abbey in Paoli, Pa., another Norbertine priory where Philadelphia neighbors said they believed he was working, but could not find Smith. A representative of the Daylesford Abbey said Smith is not a member of the order and neither lives nor works there.
Neuberger said Norbertine officials said Smith left the priory last week and they do not know where he went.
The car Neuberger said Smith drives -- a Delaware-tagged silver 2006 Nissan Maxima -- was parked across the street from his boyhood home in Philadelphia Wednesday morning. A light was on in the two-story brick row house, but no one answered the door or the telephone.
Neuberger said papers were served on the Norbertine's superior, the Rev. James Bagnato, Tuesday night. Bagnato did not return phone messages Wednesday from The News Journal. Smith's name remains on the priory's phone directory, but messages left for him there were not returned, either.
If Smith does not appear for the May 4 deposition, Neuberger said, he will seek to have him judged in contempt of court.
Smith never responded to Whitwell's suit, which claimed the former Archmere Academy faculty priest had orally and anally raped him more than 230 times over a 33-month period. Friday, a federal jury awarded Whitwell $6 million in compensatory damages and $35 million in punitive damages.
Patrick J. Johnson, associate professor at Widener University Law School, said courts usually do not incarcerate defendants or limit their travel in civil suits, even in cases with a massive jury award. The winning party usually uses the court's power to locate and seize assets, rather than the person.
Neuberger said his firm is prepared to track and seize Smith's assets.
"He can run but he can't hide," Neuberger said.
Contact Beth Miller at 324-2784 or bmiller@ delawareonline.com
Contact Sean O'Sullivan at 324-2777 or sosullivan@delawareonline.com
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