Judge: Diocese Able to Pay Alleged Child Abusers

News Journal
December 20, 2012

http://www.delawareonline.com/article/20121220/NEWS/312200053/Judge-tosses-provision

A federal judge has struck down a provision of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court settlement between the Catholic Diocese of Wilmington and survivors of priest sexual abuse that prevented the diocese from making any pension or charitable payments to abuser priests.

The ruling by U.S. District Judge Sue L. Robinson, in an appeal brought by former priest Kenneth Martin, clears the way for the diocese to make those payments if it so chooses.

Priest sex abuse survivor John Vai said on Wednesday that he was outraged.

“This is a left hook,” said Vai. “This is unbelievable.”

Attorney Thomas Neuberger, who represented nearly 100 plaintiffs in child sex abuse cases against the Diocese of Wilmington and other religious entities, said he had been unaware of the ruling or Martin’s appeal to U.S. District Court.

Neuberger said the ruling was “tainted” because there was no one representing the interests of abuse survivors in the appeal.

Neuberger and Vai noted that abuse survivors insisted on the section – struck down by Robinson – that limited payments to abuser priests, and the Diocese of Wilmington resisted having such a restriction in the plan.

The diocese, however, did file legal arguments opposing Martin’s appeal in U.S. District Court.

Diocese attorney Anthony Flynn said Wednesday that he was aware of the decision but had not had time to fully read it and had not yet talked to his clients.

Martin’s attorney, Ronald Drescher, declined comment.

The priests who were barred from receiving payments, called “removed priests,” all appeared on a list released by the late Bishop Michael Saltarelli in 2006 of priests who had admitted, corroborated or otherwise sustained allegations of abuse against them.

According to court papers, Martin became a priest in the Diocese of Wilmington in 1989 and was removed in 2001 “after his arrest in Maryland for the mid-1980s abuse of a minor.” Martin is appealing his removal from the priesthood to the Vatican.

Flynn said that as he understood the section of the bankruptcy ruling that Robinson tossed out, the restriction on the diocese has now been removed. This means the diocese may make sustenance or charitable payments to the priests if it chooses. Flynn said if any of the priests on the list were eligible for pension payments, they could now receive those benefits.

“My clients received pennies on the dollar, and for child rapists to get full pensions is shocking and wrong morally,” Neuberger said.

Neuberger said he hopes that attorneys who represented the survivors in bankruptcy court can intervene and appeal Robinson’s ruling.

In 2011, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Christopher Sontchi ruled from the bench that the settlement plan by its nature “impairs” the survivor victims – by having them take a settlement in place of taking their cases to trial – so it was only correct that the diocese be impaired by a court order limiting the ability of the diocese to make payments to abuser priests.

He went on to say that any plan that did not limit the ability of the diocese to pay abuser priests would not be a good faith plan and he would not approve it.

Judge Robinson, however, ruled “good intentions cannot trump the rule of law,” and she said there was no connection established “between the wrongs alleged and the remedy imposed.” She also wrote that Martin and others were not given the opportunity to contest their inclusion on the list of abuser priests.

Robinson said Sontchi exceeded the scope of his authority and then struck the limitation he imposed from the settlement.