CAMDEN (NJ)
The Courier-Post [Cherry Hill NJ]
December 6, 2021
By Jim Walsh
A committee for victims of clergy sex abuse has fired another salvo in a bankruptcy battle with the Diocese of Camden.
The committee on Friday asked a judge to remove restrictions on more than $63 million in diocesan funds.
The request, if approved by U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Jerrold Poslusny Jr. in Camden, would make the money available to claims by the diocese’s creditors, including the sex-abuse survivors.
The judge also is considering a separate claim, made by the committee last month, that the diocese concealed assets of more than $20 million during its ongoing bankruptcy action. The diocese has rejected the allegation.
“The committee wants transparency and to date has not received that,” Brent Weisenberg, an attorney for the committee, asserted Monday.
A diocesan spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.
The committee represents the interests of some 300 people claiming they were sexually abused by clergy members from the Camden diocese. The survivors are demanding payments as part of the diocese’s ongoing bankruptcy action.
The two sides are in a “vehement disagreement” over the value of claims made by sex-abuse survivors and the amount of money available from the diocese, said Weisenberg, a Roseland, Essex County, attorney.
The diocese has said $53 million is available for distribution to sex-abuse claimants. That’s up from earlier offers of $10 million and $26 million.
The diocese previously has said it’s spent more than $7 million on legal fees since filing for Chapter 11 protection from creditors in October 2020. It has argued any delays in reorganizing its finances “will only further exhaust its funds.”
Weisenberg offered a different view.
“The (creditors) committee is not blind to the multiple human beings who are involved,” he said, acknowledging the bankruptcy filing’s impact on parishioners and diocesan employees.
“But an equitable and fair procedure should be laid out … as opposed to rushing things through,” Weisenberg said.
In its filing Friday, the committee asserted the diocese has improperly classified cash and investments as “restricted.” It asks Poslusny to declare the assets “are unrestricted and available to satisfy creditors.”
It contends the diocese has not adequately documented its claim that the assets are “legally restricted for purposes other than paying any claims of (creditors).”Your stories live here.Fuel your hometown passion and plug into the stories that define it.
The motion names the dioceses, its parishes and one mission as defendants. It notes the diocese contends some of the contested assets “are property of the parishes.”
In filing for bankruptcy protection, the diocese cited the dual impact on its finances of sex-abuse lawsuits and the pandemic.
“If it were just the pandemic, or just the cost of (payments to sex abuse victims), we could likely weather the financial impact,” Bishop Dennis Sullivan said the time.
Sullivan leads the diocese of about 475,000 Catholics in six South Jersey counties.
The committee’s motion, however, asserts the bankruptcy action is intended “to obtain leverage over the (sex abuse) victims and to hide financial resources owned and controlled by the diocese from the survivors.”
Jim Walsh covers public safety, economic development and other beats for the Courier-Post, Burlington County Times and The Daily Journal.