Diocese Asks Stanislaus County Judge to Toss O'Grady Lawsuit
By Sue Nowicki
[with pdf] A Stanislaus County Superior Court judge will hear arguments this morning as to whether the only Oliver O'Grady lawsuit ever filed in this county should continue. The lawsuit names Sacred Heart Parish in Turlock, contending that the Catholic parish — as well as the Stockton Diocese, also named as a defendant — should have known that O'Grady was a pedophile, one who later admitted sexually assaulting more than 23 children of both sexes and sleeping with two mothers to get access to their children. The lawsuit contends that if one of the world's most notorious pedophiles had been removed from the priesthood in Turlock instead of shuffled from parish to parish, the alleged victim never would have been molested years later at Stockton's Church of the Presentation, said Vince Finaldi, an attorney with Manly and Stewart in Southern California, who filed the action. The victim in the case is a 40-year-old man "who was 11 or 12" when the abuse occurred, Finaldi said. He has two younger siblings — a sister and brother — who filed similar lawsuits in 2005 and 2008; those were settled in 2011 for a combined $2 million in damages. The current lawsuit was filed in 2009. At issue today before Judge Timothy Salter is whether the statute of limitations is in play. In general, a victim must file childhood abuse charges before he or she turns 26. But there are exceptions, said Fin-aldi. In his client's case, he said, O'Grady threatened his alleged victim that if he didn't keep silent, he was doomed to hell and would have his sexual actions publicized. To the client — a former military man and law enforcement officer — that threat became more important as his career advanced, Finaldi said. Diocese attorney: It won't work Thomas Beatty, the diocese's attorney, doesn't think that argument will stand based on a state Supreme Court ruling two months ago that upheld the statute of limitations. He also said that Sacred Heart is "not a legal entity" and can't be sued. "That's going to be thrown out," regardless of the rest of the ruling, he said. So why was this case filed in Stanislaus County? "Vince Finaldi is just court shopping," Beatty said. "San Joaquin (courts have) routinely thrown out these old, old accusations. The world knows that O'Grady did bad things. That's not the issue. The only issue is, can you wait forever to file? The (Supreme Court) has said no." O'Grady was a native of Ireland and ordained there as a priest before he joined the Stockton Diocese in 1971 at age 25. His first posting was at St. Anne's in Lodi; five years later, he admitted molesting an 11-year-old girl and wrote a letter of apology to her parents. The family said it didn't press criminal charges because the late Bishop Merlin Guilfoyle promised that O'Grady would be sent to a monastery. Instead, he was sent to Sacred Heart in 1978 and to Church of the Presentation in 1982. More transfers until arrest Other reported abuse and parish assignments followed, under Bishops Roger Mahony (1980-85) and the late Donald Montrose (1986-99) until O'Grady was arrested in 1993 and booked at the Calaveras County Jail on 23 counts of child sexual abuse. He pleaded guilty to four counts in return for a 14-year sentence. In 2000, after serving seven years, he was deported to Ireland. First, though, he voluntarily became defrocked in exchange for a diocese-provided annuity that would give him monthly payments when he turned 65. Those payments began in June 2010. O'Grady was sentenced earlier this year to a three-year prison term in Ireland after investigators found thousands of images of child pornography on his computer and other electronic devices. The motion to dismiss the lawsuit will be heard at 8:30 a.m. today in Department 22 of the Stanislaus County Superior Court. Contact: snowicki@modbee.com
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