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	Aitkens Join Cunningham in Urell Support By Frank Mickadeit The Orange County Register October 19, 2007 http://www.ocregister.com/column/cunningham-says-victims-1897227-joe-names The interesting alliance of liberal and conservative local political leaders involved in aiding a top Catholic priest continues to grow, with the significant addition of Democratic honcho Wylie Aitken's law firm. Wylie's son and partner, Darren Aitken, faxed a letter to victims' attorney John Manly this week saying he now represents conservative blogger Matt Cunningham and that he could find "no legal prohibitions on third parties possessing or publishing" the documents Cunningham posted that revealed the names of sexual-abuse victims. To catch you up: Republican activist Cunningham, former O.C. Democratic Party Chairman John Hanna (as well as south-county political and communications consultant Meg Waters) last week formed "The Friends of Monsignor John Urell." Their intent: to support the popular pastor and one-time diocesan official who had a mental breakdown during a deposition in July and about a month later was sent to a psychiatric hospital in Canada. Bishop Tod Brown is facing contempt-of-court-allegations that he deliberately sent Urell away so he couldn't testify in a sexual-abuse case. Cunningham, who also runs the Red County political Web site, set up the "Friends" site and put up links to Urell's unfinished deposition as well as a settlement agreement. Together the two documents contained the names of six to eight victims' who had decided not to go public. Horrified victims saw that and contacted an outraged Manly, who sent Cunningham a stinging letter. Cunningham immediately removed the documents from the Web site. I don't know who leaked the document to Cunningham or what that person's motivation was. Cunningham declined to tell me. However, I believe him when he says he didn't intentionally post the names or want to hurt the victims. He's just not the kind of guy who'd do that. He says it simply didn't dawn on him to look for the names and redact them. But Aitken's letter is interesting in that it doesn't argue that Cunningham lacked knowledge – it simply says there was nothing illegal about what he did. To which Manly says: Not true. Back in the early stages of the lawsuit, the diocese itself sought and obtained a judicial order barring the release of names of victims. (I'm still trying to get that.) Manly is demanding to know who gave Cunningham the unredacted documents. (The Register got only redacted versions.) He wouldn't tell me whether he's going to tack this on to his contempt-of-court motion, but says he's discussing the possibility with his clients. I called Darren Aitken late yesterday, but he had already left the office. My favorite call of the week came from a Mission Viejo woman whose name was Jeanne Keenan when she was growing up on Booraem Avenue in Jersey City, N.J., with her seven sisters in the 1950s and '60s. Right across the street from a single mom named Mrs. Cavallo and her three sons: Anthony, John and the oldest, Joseph. She hadn't seen or heard from the Cavallos in decades and wondered whether the Joe Cavallo, this colorful (and now convicted) criminal defense attorney she was reading about in my column, could really be the quiet, polite, churchgoing boy she grew up with. Holy hormones.Three Italian-Catholic Cavallo boys and eight Irish-Catholic Keenan girls? So much I wanted to know. But I stuck to the most important: How accurate is Joe's oft-told portrayal of his childhood as the far-too-young man of the house in a tough, working-class Jersey neighborhood? Pretty accurate, as Jeanne says. "It was really poor where we grew up – The Heights" says Jeanne, who is three years younger than the 52-year-old Cavallo. "We didn't know we were poor, but we were poor. They were really handsome boys, but they were brutally quiet." She'd been reading about Joe, but could never square the brash, over-the-top lawyer I described with the Joe she had known. It wasn't until I wrote about his New Jersey connections that she contacted me. "So give a Jersey girl a call, would ya?" she said in her voice mail. God, I felt like I was close to touching Springsteen's robe or something, so of course I did. "I feel so bad he made that stupid choice and screwed up his career," she told me. I gave her Joe's number and she called and they talked old times for a half-hour. Joe's brothers are coming out to visit next month and the four plan to get together. "I told him I'll pray for him," Jeanne says. Contact the writer: Mickadeit writes Mon.-Fri. Contact him at 714-796-4994 or fmickadeit@ocregister.com
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