Posted on 04/30/2002 10:53:55 AM PDT by Saundra Duffy
Mahony sued under racketeering laws 4 men say L.A. cardinal conspired to protect their molesters
Elizabeth Fernandez, Harriet Chiang, Chronicle Staff Writers
Tuesday, April 30, 2002
Cardinal Roger Mahony, head of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese in Los Angeles, was accused in two lawsuits yesterday of violating federal racketeering laws by protecting priests who molested children.
The lawsuits were filed in Los Angeles on behalf of two sets of brothers who claimed a priest victimized them when they were children in the 1960s and '70s. The suits allege that Mahony and others in the church conspired to cover up sex crimes by priests under their jurisdiction.
The suits were filed a day after Mahony, spiritual leader of the country's largest diocese with 5 million Catholics, was hospitalized and treated for a blood clot in his left lung. Doctors said the clot is not life-threatening.
Mahony, 66, who has called for zero tolerance against offending clergy, was among those who attended a special summit of American cardinals last week at the Vatican to discuss the widening sex scandal.
Besides Mahony, the suits list the defendants as the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and the Rev. Carl Sutphin, who allegedly molested the four plaintiffs.
Neither Mahony nor Sutphin could be reached for comment.
The suits accuse Mahony of a pattern that began in 1976 when, as the bishop in Stockton, he "deceitfully" concealed priestly criminal conduct from law enforcement and parishioners.
CARDINAL ALLOWED TO STAY
Later, as cardinal of Los Angeles, Mahony allowed Sutphin, who had been accused of sex abuse, to remain in the ministry, the suits claim. The molestations were reported to Mahony in 1991 and 1994, according to the suits.
The plaintiffs, including twin brothers Andrew and Joseph Cicchillo, say they were sexually molested by Sutphin between 1962 and 1976 while serving as altar boys. The other set of brothers, who were not identified by name, claim they were fondled while on a trip with Sutphin in 1976.
The Archdiocese has said that Sutphin was removed from the ministry this year and that his conduct was reported to the Los Angeles Police Department.
The suits seek an unspecified amount in damages. Any award could be tripled,
however, under provisions of the racketeering law, which was originally enacted to combat the Mafia and was later used to attack the Hells Angels and the Ku Klux Klan.
Mahony told the Los Angeles Times that after he learned about the abuse allegations, he dispatched Sutphin for psychological treatment.
"It was one of those cases where I felt he had followed the treatment program successfully, honestly, and was rehabilitated to the extent anyone can be rehabilitated," Mahony said.
Pope John Paul II appointed Mahony as archbishop of Los Angeles in 1985 and elevated him to cardinal in 1991. Mahony is a native of Hollywood.
"What we are talking about here are felonies," said Lawrence Drivon, a Stockton attorney. He filed the lawsuits with Jeffrey R. Anderson, a Minnesota attorney who has sued the Catholic Church hundreds of times.
"We think the facts clearly support that there was a conscious effort, a scheme and a design to cover up criminal activity," said Drivon.
TOP SECRET FILES
Also named in the suit is the Catholic church's roster of bishops who lead the country's 194 dioceses. In these dioceses, as part of a "scheme and enterprise to protect molesting priests," church officials kept secret "sub secreto" archival files of priests' sexual misconduct, the lawsuits say.
Not only were these files hidden, accessible only to the bishops and never turned over to law enforcement, the suit says, but they were "fraudulently purged."
RICO LAWSUITS
In recent weeks, the powerful Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations law -- or RICO -- has been deployed in a couple of other church suits by plaintiffs who say they were molested as children by priests.
Passed by Congress in 1970, the law is a complex act that outlaws any enterprise involving a pattern of criminal acts.
In 1994, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that abortion clinics can rely on the law to punish Operation Rescue members and other anti-abortion protesters who try to block the door of the facilities.
The law can be used against any manager of a group that engages in a pattern of criminal activity, which courts have interpreted as two or more acts committed within 10 years of each other. The criminal acts don't have to be convictions, just allegations of some wrongdoing.
Rory Little, a criminal law professor at the University of California's Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco, said the law has been used extensively by political groups and consumer organizations, which have successfully blocked legislative attempts to limit the use of the law. He said he isn't surprised that the law is now being used against the church.
"Congress didn't have this in mind when they wrote the statute," said Little, a former federal prosecutor, "but they wrote a pretty broad statute."
Because of the potential for hefty damages, Little said, most RICO cases are settled before they get to trial.
E-mail Elizabeth Fernandez at efernandez@sfchronicle.com. and Harriet Chiang at hchiang@sfchronicle.com.
There is going to be a special place in hell for these people.
Hopefully Sierra Wasp will expound on this great suggestion of his.
If Sierra Wasp wasn't so shy, you might be able to get him to expound on his creative and nobel idea.
These law suits will hasten the process. These non Christian Predator Homosexuals are like cancer cells in the church, if they are not removed, they will kill the church.
Now the Church must respond and exorcise these demons from the Church, or it will disappear in a decade or less.
Those of us who are not Catholics must stand back and let the Catholics clean up their mess. I believe that they will now.
More like "if" than "when"...IMHO, they have been skirting the issue so far, if the stories about Law going to Rome and the memo about not turning the priests in to the authorities are true. And I was totally outraged when they said that the 6 year old and his parents were equally responsible for the sexual molestation of the 6 year old. I pray that they can weed out the predators, but it seems they are starting off all wrong. If I were Catholic, I would be raising lots of hell over this! They need to make sure they do everything in their power to protect the children instead of their own butts.
Uh, Dave, he read it in some book by some guy who has been calling them RICOnuts for over two years here on FR.
From page 356:
It doesn’t matter if the taking is unconstitutional. It doesn’t matter if the agency lacks jurisdiction. It doesn’t matter if the manner in which the regulations were instituted should be prosecuted under racketeering laws. It doesn’t matter if the nominating bureaucrat misquotes the literature citations. It doesn’t matter if the guy doing the designating is either totally corrupt or a hopeful idiot. It doesn’t matter if there are still increasing numbers of steelhead in the creek, despite the County’s ignorance and heavy-handedness. It doesn’t matter that higher nitrate levels than are optimal for urban drinking water are necessary to support the food supply for fish.From page 374:
When the costs of compliance deprive property of value, the landowner sells. The buyer is often operating as a proxy for those with a profit interest in controlling the use of the property. That loop carries the potential for prosecution for racketeering and fraud.
Good! More good conservatives should get $issed and vent their you know what on the evil doers in our country.
With the Catholic Church, I think that those of us who aren't Catholics need to stand back let them clean their religion up! I believe that they will do it.
However, I recently told a Catholic Friend that if he and his fellow Catholics are not successful in this cleanup. We Episcopalians will have to start a massive church building program for the next two decades to handle the Catholics leaving the Catholic Church just to seat everyone besides having services 24/7 each weekend.
In our church we have seen a small exodus of former Methodists to our church in the past year. The past couple of weekends, we have had some Catholic families in shopping for a new church. Two families filled in a blue card wanting us to follow up with them at home re our church and them becoming future members.
The time may be getting to prime time to follow your suggestions on using the Rico/anti racketeering laws.
I just hope that some conservative lawyers are watching and working on this now.
What was the link again where we can buy that book by that smart guy?
This is one of the reasons that I disagree with so many Bush supporters: We help him when we rail at him not when we sing about how happy we are that he is there. A FReeper (with whom I am unfamiliar else I would credit him) posted a particularly poignant quote on that topic this morning:
Presidents, regardless of party, face constant pressures from the Left -- from the Big Brother government, neofascist, high tax, property-confiscating liberals, from the econazis and global warmists, from the pro-abortionists, from those who are pro-one world and anti-American and from those who advocate cradle-to-grave socialism. (Have I left anyone out?) And, unless there are constant counter-pressures from those on the Right who believe in small government, low taxes, America first and individual liberty, presidents, under Left-wing pressure, tend to drift that way.Bush needs us to rail and scream about why he isn't doing more for property rights. He needs us to bitch at him endlessly for that Kennedy monstrosity he signed as an education bill. He needs us to scream when the Patriot Act violates our civil liberties. If we don't make the noise, we don't help him move the point of compromise.--Lyn Nofziger
Ordinarily, I'd be worried about that, too. But if a settlement can't be reached, and this gets to the 9th circuit judges, I think their dislike of the Catholic church will override their liking of criminals. Personally, I don't think the church will let this go that far. What the church should really be worried about is the possibility of a class action RICO filing that seeks distribution of contributions back to parishioners in addition to huge damages. That could break their piggy bank. Catholic seminaries are not supposed to be homosexual bath houses, and churches are not supposed to be pedophilia rings. Had the church not made representations of moral rectitude in solicitation of funds from parishioners, nobody could accuse them of defrauding their adherents. But they did both and none of it can be whistled back. How ironic that Mahony hails from Hollywood and how sad that this church's negligence and complicity have now classed it among drug-dealing motorcycle gangs, hooded klansmen and mafia kingpins in the eyes of the law.
Or they will have families that are the back bone of the church leaving. I sure that Episcopalians all over America are being asked the same questions by concerned Catholics as my wife, friends and I have been asked in the past few weeks. Some Catholic parents are leaving and coming over and not waiting.
Not all Episcopal Churches aren't without problems. Our Bishop a former catholic priest has been on top of this issue since he became Bishop. We had a problem arise in one of our churches a few years ago. The Priest was releaved of all duties immediately when the Bishop found out the situation. This priest was a predator and was fired as an Episcopal priest by our Bishop. Then, our Bishop gathered all of his priests, canons, curates and deacons and told them that if any complaint arose, they would be suspended immediately. If they were guilty of a predatory sex crime, he would help put them into prison. Before any priest/curate or deacon is hired, they must submit to an extensive and expensive background check. If there are any questions re aberant sexual behavior, they are not hired.
God's forgiveness does not absolve civic or civil accountability for their actions.
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