BishopAccountability.org
	Plaintiff's Attorney to See Some LA Priest Files By Linda Deutsch San Francisco Chronicle February 16, 2011 http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=%2Fn%2Fa%2F2011%2F02%2F16%2Fstate%2Fn123017S67.DTL A judge ordered the Los Angeles Roman Catholic archdiocese Wednesday to turn over personnel files of 25 priests to a plaintiff's attorney in a molestation case dating from the 1980s. However, the files will remain under a protective order and will not be released publicly unless they are used in specific future court proceedings, attorneys said. Superior Court Judge Emilie H. Elias gave archdiocese lawyers until June 8 to gather the material, create an inventory and identify documents they believe are exempted by rights to privacy and irrelevance from being turned over. Some of the priests are deceased, and the judge said they would have no privacy privilege. Several served time in prison for molestation convictions. The files were sought by attorney Anthony DeMarco on behalf of someone who claims he was abused by a priest visiting from Mexico in the late 1980s. DeMarco said outside court that he and other plaintiffs' lawyers have been seeking the files for 10 years as part of a larger effort to show the archdiocese hierarchy knew about molestations and helped priests escape scrutiny by leaving the country. A lawyer for the archdiocese, Donald Woods, declined to comment on the judge's ruling. Asked if there would be any further challenge to releasing personnel records, he said, "It's too early to tell." Attorney Donald Steier, who represents nine of the priests, will have the opportunity to object to disclosing records he argues are irrelevant to DeMarco's case and violate the priests' privacy rights. Outside court, DeMarco said, "If you're a child molester, you don't have privacy rights." Steier countered that the law applies to everyone equally and said, "Even hated and despised perpetrators have the right to privacy." Woods argued in documents that the priests' privacy rights cover medical, psychiatric, finance and employment records. He said all of the priests still alive have resigned from ministry, and it may be difficult to locate some of them. The case in question involves Father Nicholas Aguilar Rivera, a Mexican priest who spoke no English and ministered in Los Angeles for nine months in 1987-88. Judge Elias limited the production of records to the period ending in 1988 when the priest left Los Angeles. District attorney's spokeswoman Sandi Gibbons said a warrant for Rivera's arrest was issued after he was charged with 19 counts of molestation in Los Angeles in 1988. She said Mexican authorities have refused to extradite him and he remains a fugitive. Steier said Rivera does not have a lawyer representing him in the case. In a statement hailing the ruling as a victory for victims of clergy abuse, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests said, "We're thrilled that long-secret church files about these 25 predator priests will finally be turned over and hopefully be publicly released. The more parents and parishioners know about predator priests, the safer kids will be."
Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.