Bishop Brown to Be Deposed in a Sex Abuse Case Involving Mater Dei High School
California Catholic Daily
September 8, 2007
http://www.calcatholic.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?id=1253c4fe-9d93-49f5-a46b-e3cf3cad2bba
California — Bishop Tod Brown must testify about what he knew about past cases of sexual abuse in the Orange diocese, ruled a judge on Sept. 5.
In Jan. 2005, the Orange diocese settled claims with 90 sex-abuse victims for $100 million. But retired Superior Court Judge Robert Jameson has ordered Brown to give a deposition in the first post-settlement sex abuse case, filed in July 2005, involving the diocese. A woman, "C.R. Doe," has accused former Mater Dei High School assistant coach, Jeff Andrade, of abusing her from 1995 to 1997, when she was a student.
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Mater Dei knew about the abuse in 1997, said Jan. 24 Orange County Register. But when after a five-month police investigation, Orange County prosecutors decided not to press charges against Andrade, the Santa Ana high school let Andrade resign quietly, in accord with school policy, without informing students or parents. The school's president, in a deposition, said he had no evidence of the abuse.
In a November 2006 deposition, however, Andrade admitted that he had had sex with Doe in 1996.
In April, Doe's attorneys won from the court the right to investigate other sex abuse cases against the Orange diocese from 1988 to 2001 to determine whether Mater Dei gave Andrade special treatment. As part of this investigation, Judge Jameson ordered Brown (who became bishop in 1998), retired Bishop Norman McFarland, Brown's secretary Father Michael McKiernan, and the diocese's general counsel Maria Schinderle to give depositions to Doe's lawyers.
Last June another woman filed suit against Orange diocese, saying that, beginning in 1994, when she was a student at Mater Dei, she was abused by a former choir director. A former valedictorian, the woman said she told Mater Dei officials about the alleged abuse at the time but they did nothing about it.
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