BishopAccountability.org
	Court Orders " Financial Discovery" on LA Archdiocese As in Two Cases " Plaintiffs Likely to Prevail " Kreutzer Changes Story to Contradict Evidence City of Angels [Los Angeles] May 23, 2007 http://cityofangels3.blogspot.com/ Good news: forward movement for the plaintiffs in hearings Wednesday morning. There's now a court order to conduct financial discovery on the Los Angeles Archdiocese, because two cases have such a preponderance of evidence that it's "likely plaintiffs will prevail."•• The two orders are for a Caffoe case (trial date August 6) and a Rucker case (trial date December 3) but the resulting audit of Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles Health and Welfare Corporation will apply to all 500 cases moving through the court system, with the first jury trial June 11 (the Kreutzer cases). Judge Haley Fromholz granted the motion saying: "Plaintiffs' evidence establishes a substantial probability that plaintiffs will prevail on the punitive damages claim." Concerning the Lynn Caffoe case, BC307225, Katherine Freberg's office cited as evidence: testimony of a priest and housekeeper, another priest's description of a videotape taken from Caffoe's room of the priest filming minors having sex, numerous reports from parents and parishioners to a priest and at least one monsignor, complaints by a school principal to the chancery, Caffoe's commitment to St. Luke's Institute, reports from the Redondo Beach Police, and finally, plaintiff's testmony. Church attorneys did not even try to argue back. The other case that opened archdiocese financial records Wednesday was BC307410, where several attorneys along with Freberg's office built a similarly concrete case involving George Neville Rucker. Here one plaintiff reported to her first and second grade teachers in the early 1960s that Rucker was molesting her and she had pain in her "private parts." Another plaintiff went to a nun on behalf of herself and a group of girls and the nun "slapped (her) in the face several times and told her not to talk about Father Rucker like that." An unidentified mother reported Rucker in 1965 to the principal of St. Anthony's and the principal reported the allegations. In 1967 Bishop Timothy Manning "suppressed a police investigation into sex abuse by Father rucker. Rucker was not finally removed from ministry... Until 2002, more than 40 years after the first report in 1959 that he was abusing children. By 2002 George Neville Rucker had more than 40 known accusers. Rucker spent a few months in prison before the Stogner Supreme Court decision in 2003 set him free and he is now living somewhere in Los Angeles. So once again a preponderance of evidence makes it "likely plaintiffs will prevail" in this case.
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