SAN FRANCISCO (CA)
Newsmax [New York NY]
August 5, 2024
By Nick Koutsobinas
Victims who experienced sexual abuse at the hands of clergy in San Francisco are calling out Vice President Kamala Harris — the city’s former district attorney — for not defending them in their time of need.
Joey Piscitelli, 69, a clergy sex abuse victim and advocate for survivors of clergy sexual abuse, told the Washington Times that Harris’ depiction of herself, being tough on sex offenders, was “bulls***.”
“She was handed a room full of cases and boxes of names of sex offenders, and all that in the church right there under her nose,” Piscitelli said. “The priest that molested me in ministry with children under her nose in the city. I wrote her a letter and said, ‘Hey, what about this guy? He’s a rapist. He’s with kids right now at the oldest Cathedral in San Francisco, right under your nose. What are you going to do?’ [And she did] nothing.”
Speaking on his story, Piscitelli said a priest sexually abused him more than 50 years ago when he was a freshman at Salesian High School in Richmond, California. In 2006, a jury awarded Piscitelli $600,000 from the priest and the Salesian Society. But, Piscitelli said, Harris had nothing to do with it.
During Harris’ seven-year tenure as a San Francisco DA, beginning in 2004, she, according to her critics, refused to turn over personnel files of Catholic priests accused of sexual abuse within the San Francisco Archdiocese.
However, when Harris began her run as a careerist politician on the national stage, she portrayed herself as a staunch defender of sexual abuse victims.
“As a prosecutor,” Harris said at a Milwaukee rally on July 23, “I specialized in cases involving sexual abuse. Well, Trump was found liable for committing sexual abuse. I took on perpetrators of all kinds — predators who abused women, fraudsters who ripped off consumers, cheaters who broke the rules for their own gain. So, hear me when I say: I know Donald Trump’s type.”
Nonetheless, as The Times article points out, in 2010, the San Francisco Weekly ran an article describing how Harris refused in 2005 to release the records to them of alleged sexual abuse.
When the San Francisco Weekly article ran, titled a “A Secrecy Fetish,” Harris’ office released a statement construing the fact that the records were held out of concern for the victims.
“District Attorney Harris,” the statement read, “focuses her efforts on putting child molesters in prison. We’re not interested in selling out our victims to look good in the paper.”
“When this case was brought under Terence Hallinan, prosecutors took the utmost care to protect the identity and dignity of the victims. That was the right thing to do then and it’s the right thing to do now.”
In October 2005, Piscitelli stood outside Harris’ office handing out flyers demanding she and Cardinal William Levada, the former archbishop of San Francisco, “quit holding hands and remove clergy abusers from schools in San Francisco now!”
“Release your files and act like a DA who wants to protect children — and not a DA who wants to shield and protect child sex abusers!” the flyer read.
Piscitelli claimed that his pursuit of justice has been fraught with obstacles. Obstacles such as church officials pleading ignorance of alleged abuses, deceased church officials who can no longer speak to the matter, or statute limitations.
In such cases, Harris, he said, withheld files necessary for civil suits.
“What was she gaining by withholding information from people who are in civil lawsuits?” he asked. “If she says, ‘Well, I couldn’t convict them, the statute had passed.’ OK. Why were you withholding it for people in civil lawsuits?”
Piscitelli, as well as Dan McNevins, 65, another victim of clergy sexual abuse, are now working with leaders at the California office of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP).
Nick Koutsobinas ✉
Nick Koutsobinas, a Newsmax writer, has years of news reporting experience. A graduate from Missouri State University’s philosophy program, he focuses on exposing corruption and censorship.