Late Priest Added to Albany Diocese's Offenders List

By Steve Barnes
Times Union
October 16, 2020

https://www.timesunion.com/news/article/Late-priest-added-to-Albany-diocese-s-offenders-15653901.php

ALBANY — A priest who spent most of his 50-year career in the Albany Roman Catholic Diocese working in high schools and was investigated for sexual abuse of minors at least three times has been added to the diocese's official list of sex offenders, according to an announcement released Friday.

The Rev. Cabell B. Marbury, who died in 2014 at age 81, served most of his priesthood at Cardinal McCloskey Memorial High School and Bishop Maginn High School in Albany, beginning in 1964, the diocese said. His posts included teaching theology, bandleader, theater director, guidance counselor and director of guidance, and vice principal. He stayed at the school as volunteer chaplain and member of the school board after his 2009 retirement, according to the announcement. He also served as assistant pastor at three area parishes in the 1960s and was affiliated with others on a lesser level over the decades.

The investigation that led to Marbury being named to the offenders list began with a 2019 complaint that revived an abuse claim first made against Marbury in 1993, according to the diocese, which did not provide details. The original allegation resulted in an "agreement for counseling assistance," the diocese said. A Diocesan Review Board investigation of an abuse allegation made against Marbury in 2003 found "no reasonable ground" to substantiate the claim, and the board had "insufficient information to make a decision" in a 2015 case, the diocese said.

After the 2019 complaint was received, last November, the diocese forwarded it to the Albany County District Attorney's Office, which declined to pursue it, according to diocese spokeswoman Mary DeTurris Poust. The Diocesan Review Board hired an independent investigator in February to look into new and past allegations against Marbury and gave the findings to Bishop Edward B. Scharfenberger, who approved the board's recommendation that Marbury be added to the list of offenders. The spokeswoman said Marbury is also the subject of an investigation under the Child Victims Act, which created a one-year window beginning in August 2019 for alleged victims of sexual abuse to file claims that previously were ineligible due to New York's statute of limitations. The CVA investigation started when Marbury was named in a lawsuit in August that was the fifth to make abuse allegations against former Albany Bishop Howard J. Hubbard.

The Albany diocese's list of offenders includes 49 priests and one deacon in the diocese, and six others associated with it, who "have been removed from ministry and those who were deceased or resigned prior to a finding of reasonable grounds by the Diocesan Review Board due to sexual misconduct with a minor," according to the diocese. It covers 1965 to 2020. More than half were defrocked after diocesan investigations, according to the list, five resigned, and 16 died before being added. Two are listed as having been sentenced to prison.

The Albany diocese urges anyone who as a child was sexually abused by a Catholic priest or deacon to report the matter to a law enforcement agency or to the diocese. To report an incident of abuse or to seek help, contact the diocese Assistance Coordinator Frederick Jones at (518) 453-6646 or by email at assistance.coordinator@rcda.org.