Two Attorneys Repeatedly Meet in Abuse Charges against Diocese
By Joe Wojtas
The Day [Connecticut]
May 13, 2007
http://www.theday.com/re.aspx?re=847cf1de-3f6c-4fd6-9929-bb6e9120d48c
As he deposed Bishop Daniel P. Reilly in a sexual-abuse lawsuit involving the late Rev. Bruno Primavera in January 2006, New London attorney Robert I. Reardon Jr. thought Joseph T. Sweeney, the attorney for the Diocese of Norwich, was smiling.
"Do you find this funny, Mr. Sweeney?" Reardon asked.
"No," Sweeney said.
"I can't imagine how you can find a priest with young boys in the car, and police are called, and you are finding it humorous. What are you, sick?" said Reardon, who was representing a man who claimed Primavera had abused him as a boy.
"My good sir, you have misread me," Sweeney said. "You do that quite often, sir. You make a lot of insulting, snide remarks. Depositions with you, sir, are one continuous confrontation of nastiness. I have been living with it for quite a while. We are here today for more."
 |
| Lawyer Bob Reardon Photo by Jennifer Lynn Page |
Later, Reardon told Reilly to be truthful and to stop looking at Sweeney for help answering questions. He also threatened to ask Reilly in court why he was "hiding out in Worcester" and unwilling to face the victims. Sweeney complained that Reardon was abusing his client. At one point, he told Reardon to "cool off."
In a hallway during a break in the questioning, Sweeney accused Reardon of threatening Reilly and telling him, "I'm going to take you down and the Catholic Church."
Reardon, in an interview, denied ever making the statement, and said he and Reilly had been talking about going to lunch together.
Such exchanges between Reardon and Sweeney have become commonplace over the past several years. The two New London-area natives have been cast in the roles of bitter adversaries, with Reardon representing young men who alleged priests in the Norwich diocese had abused them, and Sweeney defending the diocese.
So far, the diocese has paid $4,025,000 to five men represented by Reardon who say priests in the diocese sexually abused them.
The two men are alike in many ways. Both were born and raised Catholics. Reardon said he doesn't attend Mass regularly but that a priest celebrated the recent funeral Mass for his father. He and his wife were married by a priest and a rabbi. Sweeney, a weekly churchgoer, serves as a lector at St. Bartholomew's Church in Manchester.
Reardon, who grew up in Waterford and still lives there, attended St. Bernard High School at the same time as Sweeney's sister. The two men were educated at colleges run by The Society of Jesus, or Jesuits, which this month agreed to pay $900,000 to one of Reardon's clients who sued the diocese and the order after being allegedly molested by a Jesuit priest. Reardon went to Boston College and then to Fordham University Law School, while Sweeney, who graduated from New London High School in 1955, did his undergraduate work at the College of the Holy Cross, and earned his law degree from Georgetown University.
After law school, the 61-year-old Reardon worked for a short time for the late New London attorney A.A. "Ted" Washton before enlisting in the Marine Corps and working from 1971 to 1973 as an attorney with the Judge Advocate General's Office, rising to the rank of captain. He then returned to the area to practice law.
Reardon is well known in southeastern Connecticut for winning large awards for clients in high-profile civil cases. He won the first $1 million verdict in New London County and gained widespread recognition in 1993 when he won $750,000 for each of the families of two young adults from East Lyme who died when a car plunged off a closed bridge in New Haven. Four young adults died in the incident.
Sweeney, 69, grew up on Beckwith Street in New London and attended St. Joseph School. He said he has fond memories of the city, where he served as an altar boy at St. Joseph's and sang in the choir. During that time, he said he never encountered what he calls a "bad-acting priest."
The father of Michael Long, who received a $1.1 million settlement from the diocese after alleging he was abused by Primavera, was a year ahead of Sweeney at New London High. The elder Long was on the football team and Sweeney was the squad's manager.
Sweeney represented the diocese in the case. Reardon was Long's attorney.
•••••
After a stint in the Army, Sweeney joined a Norwich law firm for a short time before moving on to the Hartford firm of Halloran & Sage, where he's been since 1966. The father of three grown sons, all attorneys, he lives in Manchester.
Sweeney, who said defending priests accused of sexually abusing children is "not the kind of thing you set out in your career to do," first became exposed to the issue in 1988 when the Diocese of Bridgeport asked him to handle a case.
"It was a shock for me as a Catholic lawyer who had dealt with hundreds of priests to find out we had bad actors," Sweeney said, using the term he often employs when referring to priests accused of molestation.
Sweeney handled a number of cases for the Bridgeport diocese over seven years. His first case for the Norwich diocese came in 1994 when two brothers said a priest molested them in Vernon. In some cases, Sweeney has been successful in limiting the diocese's liability, or having the diocese removed as a defendant altogether, by proving the diocese and Reilly were unaware any abuse was occurring. He has also argued that the diocese is not liable in these cases on the grounds that sexual activity is outside the scope of employment of priests because they are prohibited from having sex with anyone.
Sweeney said Reardon wants "every parent to think every Catholic priest is a molester who wants to jump out and get their children."
"He delights in beating up on the church," Sweeney said. "I can't stop him but I can slow him down. Other lawyers buckle when they face him but I hold the line. He doesn't like to deal with me and I consider that a compliment."
Sweeney said that all of the Norwich bishops he has worked with are decent men committed to eradicating the problem of priest abuse. But, he said, they have been "unjustifiably dragged across the coals by the likes of Bob Reardon."
Sweeney said he once asked a priest who provided mental-health therapy for his fellow priests how a priest could preach to his congregation and then molest a child. He said the priest told him that it starts with priests who let up on their prayer life, making them vulnerable to temptation.
Sweeney said that while the cases of sexual abuse by priests have troubled him and that he was stunned when priests he knew were accused, it has not affected his faith.
"I'm very much committed to what the church stands for," he said. "As a layperson, I stand behind the church. If we have bad-acting priests, we have to cleanse the church of them."
•••••
Reardon said he was around many priests in his life but never had an experience like the ones his clients claim to have had.
"When I took my first (priest-abuse) case, it was hard for me to accept that a priest would be engaged in this type of behavior," he said.
He said he gained an appreciation for the magnitude of the problem when he attended a meeting of 400 survivors of priest abuse in Massachusetts and heard one after another tell their stories.
Reardon said there are many victims who have not come forward. He said some meet with him but decide they do not want to go through the painful process of a lawsuit, depositions and possibly a trial. He said many of them come from devout families and still are unable to tell their parents what occurred.
"The whole idea of sexual activity with a priest still haunts them," he said. "They feel they did something wrong and they committed a sin. They can never get away from it."
Reardon said he and his clients don't pursue the lawsuits for money but to push the church to address the problem and make sure it doesn't happen again. He refuses to sign confidentiality agreements that would bar him from discussing settlements because he believes publicity forces the church to address the problem.
He said many of the cases drag on for years and become expensive. Often, they are settled just before a trial is set to begin.
"We try hard to settle these cases because they are hard on everyone, but we'll proceed to trial if necessary," he said.
Reardon said Sweeney does not approach the cases with the same objectivity that he does. He said priests have to be viewed as human beings with all the frailties of others. They will lie to protect themselves and their institution, he said.
"I will not give a bishop any greater weight and credibility than a layperson," he said.
Despite the priest-abuse cases he's been involved with, Reardon calls the Catholic Church a great institution.
"I would hope an end will come to all of this," he said. "It's not good for the Catholic Church, which does a lot of good for so many people. Maybe through the litigation process and the money spent (to settle cases) they're finally adopting a new approach to these cases instead of turning a blind eye to these things."
Contact: j.wojtas@theday.com
Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.