By Ed Treleven
Wisconsin State Journal
December 1, 2011
http://host.madison.com/wsj/news/local/crime_and_courts/witness-says-priest-accused-in-monona-incident-didn-t-fondle/article_bab466c2-1bb9-11e1-bb38-001cc4c03286.html
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| Rev. Joseph Gibbs Clauder, 64, allegedly fondled a teenage girl in Stevens Point and at her Monona home in 2003 and 2004, then threatened to sue the girl and her cousin for slander to stop them from telling other people about the incidents, according to a criminal complaint. |
A woman who had been the only witness to a Madison priest allegedly fondling a 14-year-old girl in a hotel room testified Wednesday that no fondling actually took place, backing up an affidavit she made that recanted earlier statements she had made.
The woman, who was also 14 years old in 2003 when the incident allegedly took place in a Stevens Point motel room, said the Rev. Joseph Gibbs Clauder only put a hand on the girl's back and on her thigh to comfort her after she became upset over a question Gibbs had asked her, but did not rub the girl's pubic area as the girl has alleged.
"He didn't touch her on the crotch," the woman testified.
The alleged incident occurred a few months before another, in April or May 2004, that allegedly occurred in the girl's home in Monona, for which Gibbs, 65, is charged with sexual assault of a child younger than 16. He is not charged for the Stevens Point allegation, but prosecutors are using it and another uncharged incident to bolster the likelihood that he committed the one for which he is charged.
The witness, who like the alleged victim is now 22 years old, is the cousin of the alleged victim. The woman testified that after her cousin made the allegations during a hospital stay in February 2009, she supported her cousin's version of events in order to support their family. They also discussed the Stevens Point incident with their parish priest and with the Madison Catholic Diocese, and the woman sent a written version of the story to Kevin Phelan, the diocese chancellor.
But under questioning by Assistant District Attorney Robert Kaiser, the woman claimed that she did not write the statement and that it was written by the two girls' mothers. She also testified that she signed a sworn affidavit in February 2010 in the office of lawyer Richard Auerbach, who represented Clauder at the time, recanting the allegation she had made earlier about the incident in Clauder's hotel room.
She also declined to talk to police, who eventually began investigating the matter.
The woman testified that she knew of no threats made by Auerbach to sue her and her cousin for slander over the allegations and said nothing other than her conscience made her recant.
She also told Stephen Eisenberg, one of Clauder's lawyers, that there were details in the alleged victim's version of events in Stevens Point that simply were not correct.
But in 2009, when the story was told, she said nothing. Asked why, she told Eisenberg: "I don't know. Because it's not true."
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