OC Diocese Lawyer Trashes OC Weekly but Still Loses

By Gustavo Arellano
Orange County Weekly
July 9, 2007

http://blogs.ocweekly.com/navelgazing/naranja-news/oc-diocese-lawyer-trashes-oc-w/

[See also other articles by Gustavo Arellano.]

Last month, famed Newport Beach attorney John Manly sent two associates to Monterey so they could argue before a judge why Manly should depose Catholic Diocese of Orange Bishop Tod D. Brown. Why Monterey? Brown was the Diocese of Monterey Chancellor until 1989, and Manly represents an alleged clerical sex-abuse victim from the region.

Brown, needless to say, doesn't want to go through a Manly deposition, mainly because His Excellency is terrible before an interrogator and has sicced his lawyers on Manly & Co. in court. But in the course of defending his boss before State Superior Court Judge Kay T. Kingsley on June 29, longtime Orange diocese attorney Peter Callahan couldn't help but to take a swipe at the OC Weekly.

According to a court transcript, Callahan referred to my recent article on Bishop Brown regarding an undisclosed molestation allegation as having appeared "only in a—and I use the word generously—publication that's handed out for creative massage parlors and coffeehouses and whose advertising runs to escort services and the like." Furthermore, Callahan described the story as "not a compelling matter of public interest" since "it was not picked up in the legitimate press."

Notice how Callahan didn't deny the story, or say it was full of lies. Nor has Callahan or the Orange diocese ever disputed the facts in the dozens of stories we've written about their pedophile-protecting ways over the years. But no hurt feelings on our part. After all, Judge Kingsley denied Callahan's request and is allowing Manly to take Bishop Brown's deposition in the near future.