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ALBANY - A Saratoga County man filed a sexual abuse lawsuit Tuesday against one former Albany priest with whom the diocese settled a $1 million lawsuit and another who is deceased. Michael F. Mooney, 42, of Charlton, claims to have been abused by now-deceased Rev. Donald Starks and Mark Haight, who left the priesthood after his alleged past of sexual misdeeds with minors came back to haunt him in 1996. Mooney claims he was 14 years old when Haight, and later Starks, allegedly molested him during separate trips to Massachusetts, which is where a $3 million lawsuit was filed Tuesday....

A Catholic priest who made "liberal and aggressive use of the press" to rebut allegations of sexual misconduct cannot now bar a plaintiff and her lawyer from doing the same, a Syracuse judge ruled yesterday. Supreme Court Justice Edward D. Carni refused to impose a gag order on John A. Aretakis, an Albany-area attorney who represents dozens of alleged clergy abuse victims. Mr. Aretakis has come under intense criticism, primarily from the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany, and is the target of several disciplinary complaints alleging that he unethically disseminated scandalous information on clerics. He has persistently accused the diocese...

For the second time in a month, a Massachusetts judge ruled against the Albany Diocese's motion to dismiss or move a clergy sex abuse case against defrocked priest Dozia Wilson to New York state. According to Suffolk County Superior Court documents released Monday by attorney John Aretakis, the court denied the Albany Diocese's request and will try the lawsuit, accusing Bishop Howard Hubbard and former Boston Cardinal Bernard Law of harboring a predatory priest. Should the case make it to trial, Hubbard and other church leaders could be called upon to testify, much like Law was forced to testify in...

Attorney asks for priest's records Aretakis wants personnel files on cleric who accused him of slander ALBANY -- A lawyer representing victims of sexual abuse by priests is trying to force the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany to turn over the personnel records of a priest who has filed an ethics complaint against him. John Aretakis filed the lawsuit Wednesday in state Supreme Court in Manhattan, claiming he can't defend himself against the Rev. Carl Urban's attacks until he sees all the evidence. Aretakis claims the records will show that church officials covered for Urban's behavior. "We haven't seen the...

ALBANY -- Retired Court of Appeals Judge Howard Levine announced today an assistance program for victims of clergy sex abuse aimed at mediating issues with the church, rather than litigating them. Levine worked for 10 months on the program that is funded with $5 million from the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany. In addition, Mary Jo White, the former federal prosecutor who recently cleared Bishop Howard Hubbard of sexual misconduct allegations, donated $225,000, carrying out her pledge to directly assist victims with a portion of her fee. Levine said the focus of the program is on healing and reconciliation, and...

A Massachusetts judge has denied the Albany Diocese's motion to dismiss or move to New York state a clergy sexual abuse case against defrocked local priest Dozia Wilson. According to Suffolk County Superior Court documents made available this week by attorney for alleged victims of clergy sex abuse John Aretakis, the court will try the lawsuit accusing Bishop Howard Hubbard and former Boston Cardinal Bernard Law of harboring a predatory priest. As a result, Hubbard and other church leaders could be called upon to testify in the case that the Albany Diocese has already reached an estimated $500,000 settlement on...

ALBANY - A local defrocked priest is now the subject of two criminal investigations, one in Boston and the other downstate. The Westchester County District Attorney's Office is in the preliminary stages of launching an investigation into former Albany priest Dozia Wilson, who spent nearly 10 years as a counselor at a Dobbs Ferry treatment center for at-risk children. According to a letter sent from the Westchester DA's office to John Aretakis, an attorney for alleged victims of clergy sex abuse, the Special Prosecutions Division is "anxious" to review any material the attorney might possess related to Wilson. Wilson landed...

A retired police officer came forward Friday with allegations that Schenectady priest Carl Urban attempted to solicit sex from him back in the late 1980s after reading recent reports of the pastor accusing attorney John Aretakis of slandering his name. Retired Schenectady Det. Lincoln Grimm shared the details of how he allegedly crossed paths with Urban nearly 16 years ago as he walked down Broadway around midnight after completing a shift at work. Urban has led the Church of St. Adalbert on Lansing Street for many years. According to taped and live telephone calls through Aretakis, Grimm accused Urban of...

Hubbard proposes 'healing' meeting In letter distributed Sunday, bishop extends invitation to victims of clergy sexual abuse In an open letter to Catholics in the Albany Diocese, Bishop Howard Hubbard said he wants to meet with victims of clergy abuse so that he can apologize for any harm to them by diocesan clergy. The letter, titled "Steps Toward Healing and Reconciliation," appeared in many church bulletins distributed Sunday at parishes throughout the 14-county diocese. Hubbard directs his invitation to those "who as minors were sexually abused by clergy of the Albany Catholic Diocese." "I have heard your pain and anguish,...

LATHAM [NY]- Members of the Coalition of Concerned Catholics in the Albany Diocese released a report Wednesday criticizing attorney Mary Jo White's investigation that found "no merit" in charges of sexual misconduct against Bishop Howard Hubbard. CCCAD members gathered at the Century House in Latham to discuss the findings of their 13-page report that called White's investigation "false," labeled the lie detector tests conducted on Hubbard and others a sham and criticized the bishop for being friendly to homosexuals. The ultra-conservative group has been rallying against the bishop for more than a decade on a number of other unrelated issues...

ALBANY - Nearly 25 years after he was allegedly molested as a teenager by local defrocked priest Dozia Wilson, 38-year-old Joseph Woodward finally got the chance to tell his painful story of abuse to prosecutors and law enforcement officials in Massachusetts. "It was like having a 100-pound weight taken off my back to finally have officials interested in my situation and in carefully discerning the facts," said Woodward, befriended by Wilson when he was 14 in 1980 at St. Ann's Church in Fort Ann [NY]. The Suffolk County DA's interest in the case was prompted by a civil complaint lodged...

ALBANY - It will cost the Albany Diocese more than $2.4 million for attorney Mary Jo White's exhaustive investigation that found "no-merit" to sexual misconduct allegations against Bishop Howard Hubbard. Nearly seven weeks after the former U.S. attorney cleared Hubbard on a number of sexual misconduct charges, diocese officials made public the final bill late Thursday afternoon by issuing a short statement. Diocese officials, including Hubbard, would not comment on the hefty bill, nor discuss how it might affect the feelings of parishioners, except to say they decided to release the amount before they paid it. "We're not going to...

$2.2M bill due for report clearing bishop of charges Albany -- Former prosecutor to be paid from diocese's self-insurance fund A four-month investigation that cleared Bishop Howard Hubbard of claims of sexual misconduct will cost the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany $2.2 million. Church officials released former federal prosecutor Mary Jo White's bill late Thursday afternoon. The $2,231,910.81 total will be paid from a self-insurance fund, which is continually fed by assessments levied to each of the diocese's 178 parishes, and growing interest income, church officials said. No money from the Bishop's Appeal, the diocesan capital campaign or any other...

A report was released detailing the cost of Mary Jo White's independent investigation that cleared Bishop Howard Hubbard of sexual misconduct. The total cost came to more than $2.2 million. In a letter to the diocese, White's firm said it plans to make a significant donation to the victims of clergy sexual abuse from the payment. Attorney John Aretakis, who represents many alleged victims of abuse, called the report a very expensive work of fiction.

Diocese: Lawsuit is 'absurd' Faced with accusations of widespread corruption, Albany Roman Catholic Diocese officials are calling a lawsuit brought against them as "patently absurd." Attorney John Aretakis has filed a $2.5 million federal lawsuit Steven Hall, 34, a former church handyman at the Sacred Heart Church in Gloversville. The lawsuit accuses the former Sacred Heart pastor the Rev. David Tressic, the diocese and others of conspiring to convict him of extortion to deter his claim of sexual abuse against Tressic. Diocese spokesman Kenneth Goldfarb said today the cases brought before the church by Aretakis has distracted from the needs...

ALBANY - A former Gloversville priest who recently stepped down from the ministry and dropped extortion charges against a former male prostitute he befriended is now the focus of $2.5 million civil suit lodged against the Albany Diocese. The 64-page suit filed by attorney John Aretakis, who represents numerous alleged victims of clergy sex abuse, includes allegations that Rev. David Tressic sexually abused Steven Hall, 33, of Cortland, as an adult over a three-year period, as well as accusations against the diocese. According to Aretakis, the suit was filed Wednesday with the U.S. District Court Northern District of New York....

ALBANY - It's been nearly seven weeks, and some Catholics are wondering why the Albany Diocese has yet to release the bill for attorney Mary Jo White's investigation that found no merit to sexual misconduct allegations against Bishop Howard Hubbard. Members of the Coalition of Concerned Catholics in the Albany Diocese (CCCAD) called upon Hubbard Tuesday to publicly release the full, unedited and itemized bill on the investigation that cleared him, a bill that could potentially cost the diocese more than $1 million. White was retained at a cost of more than $700 an hour by the diocese in February...

Attorney John Aretakis said, "Bishop Hubbard, you cannot lead when you continue to mislead. You should be ashamed of yourself." Aretakis is turning his fight against the Albany Diocese into a federal court matter. He's suing Bishop Hubbard and the entire diocese under a federal RICO action. It's a type of case usually reserved for organized crime, but now Aretakis is accusing the Bishop of criminal conspiracy and a pattern of criminal cover-up. "I've accused Bishop Hubbard of a long-standing pattern of acting to protect from our civil and criminal laws, predatory priests of both children and vulnerable adults," Aretakis...

Investigators from a Massachusetts district attorney's office are looking into the possibility of launching a criminal case against defrocked priest Dozia Wilson, who had a long history of sexually abusing young boys while working in both the Albany and Boston dioceses. Interest in the case by the Suffolk County district attorney's office was prompted by a civil complaint lodged by alleged clergy sex abuse victim Joseph Woodward against Wilson. Woodward's attorney, John Aretakis, recently received a request from Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel Conley to have his client tell investigators how he was allegedly sexually abused by Wilson as a...

It's been three weeks since the conclusion of Mary Jo White's independent investigation clearing Bishop Howard Hubbard of any wrongdoing. But now, attorney John Aretakis is attacking the Albany Diocese once again, and it's contained in a 34-page lawsuit. Aretakis is holding a meeting with reporters this afternoon announcing the new lawsuit that's being filed in Boston, but names Bishop Howard Hubbard and the Albany Diocese as defendants. Area resident David Leonard, now an adult, said he was sexually abused by a Boston area priest as a young boy. He also said he was manipulated into a homosexual relationship as...