Posted on 03/11/2021 6:34:45 PM PST by marshmallow
Two retired bishops from the Buffalo Diocese will have to pay for their own defense against a state Attorney General’s Office lawsuit that accuses them of protecting priests accused of child sex abuse.
U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Carl L. Bucki rejected the diocese’s request to retain a Buffalo law firm to represent retired Bishop Richard J. Malone and retired Auxiliary Bishop Edward M. Grosz, both of whom are individually named, along with the diocese, in a lawsuit brought by Attorney General Letitia James in November.
In a ruling late Tuesday, Bucki said the diocese has “no obligation” to retain the Lippes Mathias Wexler Friedman law firm on behalf of the two bishops, who retired prior to the diocese’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing in 2020.
Bucki did allow the diocese to hire Jones Day, a multinational law firm that charges up to $1,250 per hour, for its services as its own special counsel for the attorney general’s lawsuit.
A creditor’s committee that represents survivors of childhood sex abuse in the bankruptcy case opposed both diocese requests to hire additional lawyers, arguing that they would deplete assets and that the diocese shouldn’t be fighting the attorney general’s lawsuit.
(Excerpt) Read more at buffalonews.com ...
They are probably pretty judgment-proof - that’s why they sue the church, because the priests have taken vows of poverty.
Buffalo Bishop? I have this picture in my head now. And it is like two American Indians playing chess. And .... very strange.
ABUSE TRACKER
A digest of links to media coverage of clergy abuse.
http://www.bishop-accountability.org/AbuseTracker/
Not all priests take a vow of poverty. And some bishops seem to have tidy sums of personal assets, though it isn’t very transparent.
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