OC Diocese Paid Admitted Child Molester $100,000, by Gustavo Arellano, Orange County Weekly, September 17, 2007

OC Diocese Paid Admitted Child Molester $100,000

By Gustavo Arellano
Orange County Weekly
September 17, 2007

http://blogs.ocweekly.com/navelgazing/ex-cathedra/oc-diocese-paid-admitted-child/

[See also other articles by Gustavo Arellano.]

Back in 2004, the Catholic Diocese of Orange quietly settled a lawsuit filed against former Mater Dei boys' basketball coach Jeff Andrade. To quote from my 2006 story regarding a current molestation lawsuit against Andrade:

"In 2003, Mater Dei officials admitted to Orange County Register reporter Jim Hinch that they dismissed Andrade because of his relationship with [a 15-year-old student0]. Andrade sued Mater Dei and the Orange diocese...for invasion of privacy, stating in his argument that "the disclosure of any facts pertaining to [Andrade's] employment at Mater Dei is not newsworthy." The diocese shot back in a demurrer that Andrade "had no reasonable expectation of privacy. Andrade had been accused of a sexual relationship with a student. He could not reasonably believe that the mandatory reporting of this conduct would remain private." The suit was resolved but the outcome remains confidential, and the local media never reported on the case."

The amount that Orange Bishop Tod D. Brown paid out to Andrade has remained a mystery—until last week.

That's when Brown was deposed by John Manly, the famed Newport Beach attorney that has pursued clerical sex-abuse cases across the world. On page 26 of the deposition, longtime diocesan lawyer Peter Callahan tried to argue before a judge that certain parts of Brown's manuscript should be under seal because of "privileged information in a personnel file about somebody's medical condition.

"The last time this came up in the framework of this particular case, confidential information was mentioned from a personnel file of Andrade," Callahan told Judge Robert Jameson. "We were challenged why don't we tell people who are accused, et cetera. And then Andrade sued us, and it cost us a hundred thousand dollars."

$100,000. $100,000 to a man who admitted to molesting the Mater Dei student. $100,000 to a man the Orange diocese continues to protect. $100,000 to a man that shamed the Orange diocese—yet Bishop Brown and Callahan relish the day they can go to trial against Andrade's victim. That $100,000 figure, by the way, was supposed to be under seal—guess it's not anymore!

E-mail: GARELLANO@OCWEEKLY.COM