By Seamus McGraw
Court TV [Toledo OH]
April 27, 2006
http://www.crimelibrary.com/news/original/0406/2701_rev_robinson_trial.html
The Case That Almost Wasn't
Her real name has never been publicly released, but the now 42-year-old woman identified in court papers and in the press as Jane Doe may well have done as much as anyone to set in motion the chain of events that led to the arrest of Father Gerald Robinson and his now ongoing trial for the murder of an elderly nun nearly two and a half decades ago.
And while those who know her say it was never her intention, there are some who believe that if the woman, described as accommodating and cooperative almost to the point of being self-effacing, had not come forward in 2003, then the case against Robinson might never have been made.
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| Robinson in Court |
Ironically, says Claudia Vercellotti, an activist with the local advocacy group SNAP (Survivors Network of Those Abused By Priests and other church leaders) who has worked closely with Jane Doe, the woman had far different intentions when she first emerged in June of 2003 to recount what she described as an ordeal of ritualized sexual abuse, Satanic in its overtones, committed, she alleged, by priests years earlier. Among them, she alleged, was Robinson.
For years, she had kept her allegations largely a secret, but the haunting after effects, she claimed, had driven her to seek intensive, and expensive therapy. At last, she brought her story of abuse she endured years earlier to the Diocese of Toledo's Review Board.
By all accounts, she was not seeking the prosecution of those she alleged had molested her. At least not at first. Instead, swayed by the church's pledge that it would remunerate victims of sex abuse by priests, she came seeking $50,000 to cover the cost of years of therapy as a result of the alleged abuse.
What happened next remains a subject of controversy.
Did The Diocese Do Enough?
The Toledo Diocese has long maintained that it treated the woman professionally, and took her claims seriously enough that they hired two retired police officers to investigate them. According to published reports, the two former officers, John Connors and Lawrence Knannlein, spent some some interviewing the woman, They were, Connors would later tell reporters, stunned by her allegations that she had been abused by priests in bizarre rituals, often involving candles and altars from the time she was a preschooler until she was 14. Though she identified her primary abuser as Father Chet Warren, a priest who was later defrocked, she said three others also abused her. On one of those occasions, she alleged, Robinson was her abuser, though in that case, she said, the trappings of ritual were omitted.
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| Father Chet Warren |
At some point, the Diocese has maintained, it forwarded the information the woman had provided to the authorities.
But Vercellotti contends that the Diocese was far less proactive than it has claimed. Though a year earlier, the conference of American bishops, rocked by mounting allegations of sexual abuse by priests had met in Dallas, Texas, and agreed to what has become known as the Dallas Charter, pledging "openness, honesty and transparency" in their dealings with alleged victims, and through the Toledo Diocese itself had signed a similar special agreement with the local prosecutor, the Diocese, she contends dragged its heels on Jane Doe's complaint.
And there is evidence that she is not alone in that opinion. According to published reports and one member of the board, a psychologist named Robert Cooley insisted that the woman's allegations be reported immediately to police. In a letter dated June 12, one day after the woman had appeared before the board, and addressed to Diocesan Case Manager Frank DiLallo, the Diocese's attorney, Thomas G. Pletz argued that the board was under no legal obligation to do so.
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| Dioceses attorney Thomas G. Pletz |
Pletz further maintained "that this person's Diocesan file was reviewed by the Lucas County Prosecutor's Office last year. Vercellotti says she was and remains skeptical of that contention, arguing that Jane Doe had not approached the Diocese with her complaints until the day before Pletz' letter.
Two weeks later, Pletz again wrote, this time to Frank Link, chairman of the review board, again maintaining that prosecutors had been fully informed of the woman's allegations. And a short time later, Cooley, who had continued to insist that the board notify police, was dismissed from his post.
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