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	Urell's Lawyer Says Absence Is Legitimate The Molestation Point Man's Point Man By Frank Mickadeit Orange County Register September 19, 2007 http://www.ocregister.com/column/urell-hennessey-says-1847754-manly-deposition Does Monsignor John Urell finally have the loyal and independent counsel he needs to fight baseless allegations that he fled the country to avoid testifying in a molestation case? Or, as his detractors say, has he sucked in another well-meaning soul who refuses to believe that such a charming man could have wrongly withheld the nastiest of Diocesan secrets for decades? I got a note from Urell's lawyer, Patrick Hennessey, asking me to examine some documents and allow him to set the record straight. Hennessey and Urell met at the gym more than 25 years ago and became friends. The lawyer is a Catholic but has never been a parishioner of Urell's. They usually talk once or twice a week. "I have many acquaintances but very few friends, and this is one of my best ones," Hennessey told me as we sat in the 13th-floor conference room of his Irvine law firm. "What is happening to him now is breaking my heart, because it is not right." His message is twofold: Urell is not a molester (and has never been accused of being one), and he is legitimately ill with an acute anxiety disorder. On July 27, Urell broke down during a deposition he was giving to the attorneys of a woman who is suing the Diocese of Orange. Jane C. R. Doe had a two-year sexual relationship with a Mater Dei assistant basketball coach named Jeff Andrade when she was a student. Urell had been the right-hand man to the last two bishops and knows perhaps more than anyone about sexual-abuse problems in the Diocese. Urell left the deposition, saying he was too distressed to continue. Hennessey says that in late August he was talking to Urell on the phone when he could sense the priest was in distress. "I drove over to his place (at St. Norbert's rectory in Orange) and could see that everything wasn't O.K." Over Labor Day weekend, he says, Urell's anxiety worsened and Hennessey tried to contact the priest's psychiatrist. He got an appointment for him for first thing Tuesday morning after the holiday. Urell spent about 20 minutes being examined, he says, after which the doctor emerged and said Urell needed immediate hospitalization. Why Canada? "My understanding," Hennessey said, "is that this facility treats a variety of conditions but is uniquely qualified in matters involving clergy members, and (it) understands pastoral life." In the following days, Hennessey negotiated with Doe's lawyers about continuing the testimony. Doe's lawyers sent him a tentative agreement in which they agreed Urell would not have to complete the deposition as long as everything he'd said so far under oath could be used in court, as well as everything he said in a deposition in a 2001 molestation case. "I see in the paper that plaintiff's lawyers are saying his testimony is necessary to the case, but I have a declaration from plaintiff's lawyers saying his testimony is satisfactory," Hennessey said. That deal was never signed, however, and there's two reasons why, according to Doe attorney John Manly: 1) At the time Doe attorneys proposed it, they didn't know Urell would be sent to the Southdown Institute in Canada, and 2) a few days after the proposal was drafted, former Bishop Norman McFarland produced a 1994 policy document that said Urell would be the point person for all claims of sexual misconduct in the Diocese. "Monsignor Urell is the critical witness, the point person on the case," Manly told me yesterday. Noting the 26-year-old victim was subjected to seven days of deposition, he added: "I'm sorry, I don't have a lot of sympathy for him." It didn't sound to me as though Urell intends to come back any time soon. I asked Hennessey how his client was faring. According to his doctor, Hennessey says, "he's pretty much the same as when he went there." He has a right to be exempted from testimony, he says, just as if he were a heart patient at Hoag. Manly scoffs at the notion that Urell couldn't have been treated locally. "I don't believe Mr. Hennessey is a liar," Manly said. "I just think Mr. Hennessey doesn't know the whole truth. I invite (him) to come to my office and examine all my files on (Urell) and then evaluate." Manly made me the same offer. Tomorrow I'll take you through some parts of Urell's previous depositions that might illustrate why having to talk about these things would cause him anxiety. I have 878 pages to read. Say a Hail Mary for me. Contact the writer: Mickadeit writes Mon.-Fri. Contact him at 714-796-4994 or fmickadeit@ocregister.com.
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