SAGINAW (MI)
Saginaw News
June 3, 2019
By Cole Waterman
When police executed search warrants at three Catholic Diocese of Saginaw properties last year during an investigation into claims of sexual abuse of minors, documents show they seized nearly 60 items of evidence.
Among them, located in the bottom drawer of a filing cabinet at diocese headquarters, was a file labeled “victim list.”
That information is contained in search warrant paperwork detailing what police seized during the March 2018 raid. The paperwork was recently unsealed and copies were obtained by MLive and The Saginaw News.
The list of confiscated property shows investigators took 57 items during the search of three locations – former Bishop Joseph R. Cistone’s home at 32 E. Corral Drive in Saginaw Township, the Saginaw Diocese offices at 5800 Weiss St. in Saginaw Township and the rectory at Cathedral of Mary of the Assumption at 615 Hoyt St. in Saginaw.
The items included computers, flash drives, expense accounts, internal memos and boxes containing the personnel files of now-convicted Rev. Robert J. DeLand Jr., three other priests and one deacon. The police paperwork does not explain the contents of the “victim list” file seized by investigators.
The majority of evidence police seized has been turned over to the Michigan Attorney General’s Office, which is currently investigating all seven Catholic dioceses in the state on sex-abuse claims dating to the 1950s.
As part of that investigation, law enforcement in October executed search warrants on each diocese in Saginaw, Detroit, Marquette, Lansing, Kalamazoo, Gaylord, and Grand Rapids.
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