NEW YORK
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests
For immediate release: Wednesday, Oct. 23, 2013
Statement by Peter Isely of Milwaukee, national board member of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests ( 414-429-7259, peterisely@yahoo.com )
A judge’s new ruling could further shield NY Cardinal Tim Dolan from the legal and public consequences of clergy child sex abuse cases he handled for eight years in Milwaukee.
The decision comes weeks after the same judge refused to rescue himself from the Milwaukee bankruptcy case even though he and his family have strong connections to the archdiocese.
Late yesterday, Judge Rudolph Randa ruled that a deaf survivor of the Fr. Lawrence Murphy is bound by an agreement he reached with church officials even though he was deceived in order to secure that agreement.
The agreement was reached in an archdiocesan program designed by Dolan in 2003. We believe the purpose of that program was to quickly and quietly settle with victims while deliberately misleading them about the archdiocese’s prior knowledge of the criminal history of abusers. At the same time, it induced victims to accept nominal restitution in exchange for waving all future legal rights. If the victim would later discover they had been deceived by Dolan and the archdiocese, as we now know they were, they would have no legal recourse.
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