ILLINOIS
Crux
The country’s most visible advocacy group for survivors of clerical sexual abuse is denying claims made by an ex-employee, who charges in a lawsuit that the group “does not focus on protecting or helping survivors, it exploits them,” including taking kickbacks from lawyers suing the Church.
A lawsuit by an ex-employee charges that the Survivors Network Of Those Abused By Priests (SNAP), a highly visible advocacy group for survivors of clerical abuse, is actually “a commercial operation motivated by … personal and ideological animus against the Catholic Church,” and that it routinely engages in kickback schemes with lawyers suing the Church.
“SNAP does not focus on protecting or helping survivors – it exploits them,” says the lawsuit, filed Jan. 17 in the Circuit Court of Cook County, Illinois.
“SNAP routinely accepts financial kickbacks from attorneys in the form of ‘donations.’ In exchange for the kickbacks, SNAP refers survivors as potential clients to attorneys, who then file lawsuits on behalf of the survivors against the Catholic Church,” the suit alleges.
“These cases often settle, to the financial benefit of the attorneys and, at times, to the financial benefit of SNAP, which has received direct payments from survivors’ settlements.”
News of the lawsuit was first reported on Wednesday by National Catholic Reporter editor Dennis Coday.
On Thursday, a SNAP official denied the claims in a brief written statement to Crux.
“The allegations are not true,” said Barbara Blaine, the group’s president.
“This will be proven in court. SNAP leaders are now, and always have been, devoted to following the SNAP mission: To help victims heal and to prevent further sexual abuse,” she said.
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