Milwaukee Federal Appeals Judge Rules Fraud Claims against Archdiocese Can Move Forward

By Peter Isely
SNAP Midwest
October 30, 2012

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MilwaukeeFederal appeals judge rules fraud claims against archdiocese can move forward

Archdiocese had asked Judge Randa to throw out all 570 victims from court

Today Milwaukee Federal Judge Rudolph Randa has rejected the appeal of Archbishop Jerome

Listecki and his lawyers to throw out of court the claims of 570victim/survivors who have filed for restitution in Federal Bankruptcy court as a result of being raped and sexually assaulted by clergy, employees or volunteers of the Archdiocese. Attorneys for survivors and the Creditors Committee had successfully argued in February before Federal Bankruptcy Judge Susan V. Kelley that claims should be allowed to proceed because there was sufficient evidence that the archdiocese had committed decades of fraud by intentionally concealing and transferring scores of known child molesting clerics.

In a letter to Randa dated October 22, 2012 the archdiocese made clear exactly what its

intentions are in regards to victim/survivors. “The Archdiocese strongly believes that all the claims” wrote Francis H. LoCoco, Counsel for the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, “including those that are subject of the New Objections and Appeals, are not allowable under applicable bankruptcy

law.” In other words, the archdiocese wants every single claim tossed out of court. Why, then, did they file for bankruptcy in the first place, urge victims to come forward and file claims, and then spend 7.2 million dollars on lawyers and consultants? Clearly, the archdiocese’s intention all along was to stop the growing number of fraud cases from being successfully filed in Wisconsin civil courts, where victim/survivors would have their chance for justice, and instead use the Federal court to circumvent the state courts.

Fortunately, Randa today upheld Kelley’s earlier decision, which should in principle allow the majority of the cases to proceed.

The archdiocese two years ago dramatically and publically urged victim/survivors to come forward to file for restitution in Federal Bankruptcy Court. What have theydone since? After putting victim/survivors through almost two years of torturous legal wrangling and then claiming last month that “much progress” was finally being made in mediation, we now know that behind the scenes all the while they were planning to ask the court to dismiss every single claim. Does this not show that their original intentions in filing for bankruptcy, which victim/survivors urged them not to do, was false, preposterous and unjust?

SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, is the world’s oldest and largest support group for clergy abuse victims. We’ve been around for 23 years and have more than 12,000 members. Despite the word “priest” in our title, we have

members who were molested by religious figures of all denominations, including nuns, rabbis, bishops, and Protestant ministers. Our national website is SNAPnetwork.org. The local Wisconsin website is SNAPwisconsin.com.