NEWARK (NJ)
NorthJersey.com [Woodland Park NJ]
December 20, 2024
By Deena Yellin
The release of a new report about clergy sexual abuse by Michigan’s attorney general has survivors in New Jersey again asking when Garden State authorities will issue results of their own long-promised investigation.
“Where is the New Jersey report?” asked Mark Crawford, the New Jersey director of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, in an interview. “Why are victims here still waiting without answers or information after six years? Who is standing in the way and trying to conceal the truth?”
On Monday, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel released a 345-page report documenting alleged sexual abuse cases tied to clergy in the Catholic Diocese of Lansing. It was the latest in a series of reports from her office about the state’s seven dioceses.
The report included tales of abuse leveled against a former Franciscan brother, Kurt Robert Munn, 78, who served in both Michigan and New Jersey. He faces two lawsuits related to his time at a Burlington County parish.
One of his accusers, Todd Kostrub of Ocean County, spoke to The Record and NorthJersey.com this week. He called Munn one of the “most prolific child serial rapists” in the state but lamented that “he’s still walking around free.”
Reached by phone on Wednesday at his home in DeWitt Michigan, Munn was cordial but declined to comment on the allegations. “Oh, boy,” he said ruefully. “I was waiting for this.”
Munn said he lives alone with two cats and spends his days working around his house and on his yard. He is retired from the clergy, he added. “I don’t bother anyone, and they don’t bother me,” he said.
What happened to NJ clergy abuse report?
Michigan is one of several states where authorities have conducted investigations into the priest abuse scandal in recent years. The list also includes New York State, Kentucky and Nebraska and dates back to a landmark report in 2018 by a Pennsylvania grand jury that documented decades of alleged improprieties and cover-ups by church officials there.
Following the release of the Pennsylvania report, then-New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal announced the formation of a task force to investigate stories of abuse in the Garden State. He established a hotline to allow people to file allegations.
More: Five years later, clergy abuse survivors still waiting for NJ attorney general’s report
So far, the New Jersey efforts have yielded three criminal cases, leading to two convictions and one acquittal. But despite Grewal’s promise at the time, there has been no word from the AG’s office on a final report.
Survivors of sexual abuse and their advocates say they are still waiting for a public accounting of the damage done in New Jersey.
“I fear the report will never see the light of day,” said Monsignor Kenneth Lasch of Mendham, a retired priest in the Paterson Catholic Diocese who advocates for abuse victims.
Kostrub, who alleges that Munn abused him for a decade, said the delay has been painful. “It’s been over six years and we’ve gotten nothing but crickets from New Jersey,” he said.
Grewal stepped down in 2021 to join the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission; the New Jersey office is now held by Matthew Platkin.
NJ ‘remains committed’ to investigation
The Attorney General’s Office declined to comment on the Michigan report but said in a statement Tuesday that it “remains committed to the mission of the Clergy Abuse Task Force. A group of dedicated prosecutors and investigators from across the state, the Division of Criminal Justice, and the twenty-one county Prosecutor Offices, continue to work to bring justice to the victims and survivors of unimaginable abuses, and hold accountable not only their abusers, but also persons and entities facilitating that abuse.”
“While we cannot comment on an ongoing investigation, we continue to encourage all New Jerseyans with information relevant to incidents of clergy abuse to come forward and report that information to authorities,” the statement continued.
New Jersey’s Clergy Abuse Hotline is still active at 1 (855) 363-6548. Information can also be submitted online via the task force website, the AG’s office said.
The Michigan investigation was launched in 2018 and has thus far resulted in four of seven reports, one for each of the state’s six dioceses and the Archdiocese of Detroit, Attorney General Nessel said in a statement Monday.
Her office has filed criminal charges in 11 clergy abuse cases in Michigan, obtaining nine convictions. This week’s report listed allegations against 56 people affiliated with the Diocese of Lansing since 1950, including 48 priests, three religious brothers, a former religious brother and four deacons, according to Nessel.
“These reports are important, not just because we made a promise to the survivors years ago, but because victims, especially in cases like these where the assaults were perpetuated by entrusted members of a community, are often silenced − in some cases for decades or a lifetime,” she said.
Accused priest shuttled from Michigan to NJ
According to the report, Munn was a member of a branch of the Franciscan Friars, a Catholic religious order. Starting in 1964, Michigan authorities said, he bounced between assignments in DeWitt, upstate New York and Roebling, New Jersey, where he served at the Holy Assumption Church from 1972 to 1979. After another stint in DeWitt, he returned to New Jersey from 1986 to 1993, the report said.
Kostrub, 60, said that Munn abused him for 10 years, beginning in 1972 when he was a 7-year-old and while Munn was a coach, bus driver and head of altar boys at Holy Assumption. “I couldn’t avoid him,” Kostrub said in an interview. “He was everywhere.”
There were other victims as well, Kostrub said, but Trenton’s Catholic Diocese and the Franciscan Order “ignored and enabled the abuse for years.”
Rayanne Bennett, a spokeswoman for the Trenton Diocese said, “We are aware of a complaint involving Kurt Munn, but we do not comment on matters in litigation.”
Kostrub came forward with his story in the mid-1990s. According to the Michigan report, the New Jersey State Police investigated, and Munn confessed to abusing at least 13 boys, including three in Michigan. “However, because the applicable statute of limitations in New Jersey had then expired, no charges were brought,” according to the Michigan AG’s accounting.
“Munn said he realized what he was doing was wrong and he quit in 1976 and hasn’t touched anyone since,” according to the report.
According to a copy of the New Jersey report provided by Kostrub, state police also interviewed a priest, Father Capistran Polgar, who was pastor at the Holy Assumption Church when Munn served there. Polgar told police he became aware of Munn’s “problem” after an anonymous phone caller said he was molested by Munn in the late 1970s.
Survivor fears ‘the evidence will die with us’
According to the report, the priest then contacted the Franciscan Order’s head of province in New York and it was determined that Munn would be sent to Chicago for evaluation and rehabilitation. Polgar told police that the church did not conduct any investigation of the matter. A second priest interviewed by state police added that Munn confessed to the assault but there was no attempt to contact the victim or police.
In 1993, Munn requested a dispensation from the Franciscans. It was granted the following year and he left the order.
“Todd’s case is unique,” said Greg Gianforcaro, Kostrub’s attorney. “Firstly, there’s a very thorough police report. Also, Munn has acknowledged his abuse and Todd was abused for a period of many years. It’s amazing that he’s still alive, but it’s a testament to his family and to himself that he’s a survivor.”
Kostrub is suing the Trenton Diocese, Holy Assumption parish and Munn. In 2020, a second New Jersey man filed a suit against Munn, alleging abuse that started when the plaintiff was 10 years old, according to the Michigan report.
Kostrub’s lawsuit is still pending. “Every day that passes, there are victims that die, and when the victim dies, all the evidence will die with us,” he said.
He is desperate for his case to be heard. “I am 60 years old and I’ve never tasted justice. But I may go to the grave and never find justice.”
Deena Yellin covers religion for NorthJersey.com. For unlimited access to her work covering how the spiritual intersects with our daily lives, please subscribe or activate your digital account today.
Email: yellin@northjersey.com; X/Twitter: @deenayellin