MINNESOTA
Fox 9
ST. PAUL, Minn. (KMSP) – Attorneys representing hundreds of clergy sexual abuse victims are claiming the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis has a net worth of about $1.7 billion – far more than the $45 million divulged in court documents last year. The legal team of attorney Jeff Anderson says the archdiocese has taken “multiple, deceptive actions” to “divert and shelter funds from sexual abuse survivors” since the Minnesota Child Victims Act was passed in May 2013.
Anderson has called a 1 p.m. news conference at his St. Paul, Minn. office to outline a legal motion filed late Monday in the archdiocese’s federal bankruptcy case. More than 400 people have filed lawsuits against the archdiocese ahead of the May 25 deadline for claims covered by the Minnesota Child Victim’s Act, which lifts the statute of limitations for people who say they were sexually abused. A judge ordered the parties into mediation in February 2015, but no settlement has been reached.
Attorneys expect the archdiocese to propose a Chapter 11 repayment plan that would significantly short-change the victims. According to a court document:
“Within the next few days, the Debtor will file a plan of reorganization that (i) seeks to prohibit more than four hundred survivors of clergy sexual abuse from reaching any of the assets that the Debtor alienated as a matter of civil law, but (ii) simultaneously provides more than 200 entities holding such assets with a complete and final release of liability for sexual abuse claims.”
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