Yesterday the Creditors’ Committee in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee Bankruptcy
proceedings asked the Court to hire a forensic accounting firm to scrutinize the
Archdiocese and Archbishop Timothy Dolan’s transfer of millions of dollars in
the years leading up to the bankruptcy. The forensic accountants the
Creditor’s Committee is recommending are experts in reviewing financial affairs
of organizations, including transfers of money by the organization.
Blog
In spite of the fact that the Philadelphia Archdiocese secretly continued to allow three dozen credibly acused offenders to remain…
At a conference in Milwaukee this week, Diarmuid Martin, the Archbishop
of Dublin, Ireland, provided a powerful message to those in attendance
when he said, “Only the truth sets us free.” And, that the church must
be “willing to tell the truth and take ownership of the truth, even when
the truth is unpleasant.”
The news from
Philadelphia today is that Cardinal Justin Rigali has suspended two additional
priests because of credible allegations that they have engaged in sexual abuse
of children.
On March 16, criminal investigators from the United Kingdom’s Child
Exploitation and Online Protection Centre cracked what is being
described as the World’s largest paedophile ring ever.
Detectives have arrested 184 people from the Netherlands, UK,
Australia, Italy, Canada, New Zealand and Thailand during the three-year
investigation. According to the report by the BBC, members of the
network used private channels and secret systems to share pornographic
films and images. The operation chief, Peter Davies, said “Not only is
it one of the largest operatio…
In August of 2010, we filed a lawsuit against Pastor
Derstine, Gospel Crusade Inc. and Gospel Crusade Fellowship Inc., for sexual
abuse of Plaintiff, a minor, by Gerald Derstine at the Strawberry Lake Retreat
in Minnesota.
Earlier today the Archdiocese of Philadelphia placed 21 of
the 37 priests named in the recent Philadelphia Grand Jury Report and accused
of sexually abusing children, on administrative leave.
The
U.S. District Court for the Central District of California issued an unprecedented opinion today allowing our client’s case using the Alien Tort Statute to go forward. You can find the entire text of the opinion on our site. In denying Defendant Cardinal Roger Mahony’s and the Archdiocese of Los Angeles’ motion to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, the Court permitted Plaintiff’s…
Today, our firm and Anthony DeMarco, an attorney in Los Angeles, filed a suit on behalf of a courageous survivor who was abused as a young boy by a Salesian priest, Fr. Gerald Wertz, at St. John Bosco High School in Bellflower, California. You can find a copy of the lawsuit here. Importantly, Fr. Gerald “Jerry” Wertz is still considered to be in ministry, and is residing in the Salesian Provincial House in San Francisco, adjacent to a high school with over 1,000 students.
In a recent blog post Archbishop Dolan is incorrect in claiming that we accused him of secretly “hiding” the assets referred to in his blog. The fact is, we simply stated that we had questions about certain financial moves made by the Archdiocese. Indeed, what he did wasn’t hidden. In fact, he and his financial advisors brazenly “moved” the assets out of the control of the Archdiocese in broad daylight—after the Wisconsin Supreme Court allowed some victims of clergy sexual abuse to sue the Archdiocese. We think we have grounds to be suspicious…