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Second Thoughts: LA Abuse Story and Iraq Vet
By David Gibson
Beliefnet
February 10, 2009
http://blog.beliefnet.com/pontifications/2009/02/second-thoughts-la-abuse-story.html
Last week I linked to a story from the LA CityBeat paper that was making the rounds indicating that the Archdiocese of Los Angeles was engaged in an awful-sounding legal strategy to deny a possible abuse victim recourse to the courts. The victim, "John TH Doe" in court papers, was reportedly in Iraq when the State of California created a one-year window for victims to sue even if the statute of limitations expired. John TH Doe claims he was sevring overseas and thus was entitled to an exemption.
That is his claim, and lawyers for the archdiocese apparently are arguing he doesn't merit that exemption. But I took the word of a free paper I don't know too readily, it seems--the peril of blogging always passing as journalism.
A spokesman for the LA Archdiocese, Tod Tamberg, posted a resonse to the story in the comments section of the piece in part because he was never contacted about the story--bad move--and in part because the story had a lot of relevant info missing--such as the fact that the LA Archdiocese is not a defendant in the suit, nor did the alleged abuse happen in the archdiocese. rather, it took place in the neighboring Orange diocese. .
Bad journalism. Read the rest of Tamberg's comments here:
Response by Tod Tamberg, Archdiocese of Los Angeles, to L.A. City Beat story
Reading the recent L.A. City Beat story, "Mahony to Iraq War Vet: Screw Yourself," one might be forgiven for assuming that Cardinal Mahony is fighting a sex abuse lawsuit filed by a man who served in Iraq in 2003. The story says the man wants to sue using the 2003 California law that lifted for one year the statute of limitations on lawsuits for past sexual abuse because he was in the military overseas in 2003. The story says that he claims that because he was in Iraq in 2003, the law grants him a filing extension.
The truth is, however, that much of the above as reported by L.A. City Beat is not accurate.
1. Neither Cardinal Mahony or the Archdiocese of Los Angeles are named in the lawsuit: The Archdiocese merely appeared at a hearing called to determine whether there are enough facts to allow the man's complaint to proceed at all. Even if the case goes beyond this stage, the Plaintiff will still have to demonstrate actual facts to support being able to actually name a Defendant.
2. The alleged abuse did not happen in the Archdiocese: The reporter casually refers to the alleged abuse as taking place when the man was a 17-year-old student at an "L.A.-area high school." In fact, the high school is in the Orange Diocese, not the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. The Diocese of Orange was created in 1976. The alleged abuse was claimed to have happened in the 1980s.
3. The initial complaint didn't claim sexual abuse: In the initial complaint the man says that a priest "attempted" to touch him when he was a 17-year-old student. When he discovered that this did not constitute abuse or battery, he filed an amended complaint alleging that the priest grabbed his crotch and groped him. Inexplicably, the amended complaint still retains the "attempted" to touch language later in the complaint, after the new language alleging the other acts.
4. The complaint does not mention that the man is an Iraq War veteran: Though the City Beat story creates the impression that the man served in Iraq, the complaint only briefly states that he was in the military. It does not say whether he actually set foot in Iraq, or when, or what he did, or for how long. Indeed, his attorney said in Court that the man was stationed in the U.S.
The L.A. City Beat story actually claims far more than does the Complaint itself. Why? Apparently, the man's attorneys used the reporter to write what amounts to a press release, with assumed "facts" that, as it turns out, are unsupported by the Complaint itself.
Based on the information above, we call upon L.A. City Beat to retract its story.
posted by Tod on 2/08/09 @ 06:13 p.m.
There has of this posting been no response to Tamberg's comments, which there should be. I do think there is a tendency to take lawyers' accounts at face value in these cases, and that has too often led to exaggerations that wind up victimizing the abuse survivors yet again.
As for me, I shouldn't have posted on the initial story until, and if, I had a better account.
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