CASPER (WY)
Star Tribune
Dec. 4, 2019
By Seth Klamann
Gov. Mark Gordon said he would talk with Wyoming Attorney General Bridget Hill about investigating sexual abuse by priests in the Equality State, in the wake of other states launching their own inquiries into the history of abuse by Catholic clergymen.
“My sense is I probably will, now that you bring it up, probably ask Attorney General Hill her point of view of where the state’s role should be,” Gordon said during a wide-ranging interview with the Star-Tribune on Tuesday. “Those are horrific cases. Horrific cases.”
Gordon added that he was “hesitant to say we’re going to storm in” without knowing more of the details of abuse by priests in Wyoming and without consulting with Hill.
The comments come as one of the state’s top prosecutors, Natrona County’s Dan Itzen, continues to review a sexual abuse case involving two men, including retired Wyoming bishop Joseph Hart. Hart has been accused by at least 16 men in Wyoming and in Missouri, where he was a priest for 20 years before moving here. He has been the subject of a months-long criminal investigation that started with Cheyenne Police and is now in the hands of Itzen, whose own work on the case has lasted more than 100 days.
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