Attorney Donald Steier appears every time an L.A. pedophile priest needs defense, whether it’s criminal, civil, or appeals court.  (Summer rerun: This story first appeared Jan. 29, 2009, at City of Angels Blog.)

Donald Steier Jan 2009

A rough Trascript of a hearing on personnel files below shows Steier (pictured) is adept at extending the legal process ad infinitum. One tactic he uses is to continue and continue and continue hearings, hoping plaintiff attorneys will simply drop out of the fight due to depleted resources. Steier has admitted in a California state court that he is paid by the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles, a corporation sole. Here is how a hearing about release of priest personnel files went in L.A. Superior Court in Jan. 2009:)

Steier: I won’t accept this. There are particular realities of the situation. I am going to ask for a hearing date and then determine if an appellate filing would be appropriate. (In other words, he’s already planning to appeal the decision that will be made next hearing.)

Tony DeMarco, Attorney for the plaintiffs, turns around to Steier and says, “It’s been fully briefed. Do you still want to formulate arguments? There’s no need to extend more and more delays.” (See Video of interview with DeMarco after this hearing at bottom of this blog post.)

Steier: The delay is not mine. I’m not a total idiot. This issue is different from Clergy Two. Now we’re going forward with a new discussion and I’m going to argue it.

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Here’s where it gets murky. Steier asks everyone to coordinate their calendars around this trip he’s taking. I sense others in the court have been impatient with him for a long time. It’s in the body language.

An ephemeral slouch comes over the attorneys as Steier jumps up yet again and asks for more time to file more briefs, more hearings, more ways to stretch this thing out so long that the Los Angeles news media has long forgotten the Clergy Cases, even some of the plaintiffs seem to have forgotten that release of personnel files on their perpetrators was part of the July-Dec 2007 L.A. settlement agreement between 510 plaintiffs and the Catholic Church.

At this Jan. 2009 hearing, the lawyers and judge juggled the hearing date so that Donald Steier, who represents an undetermined number of priests, could file yet another opposition brief and the date is especially important as Steier is taking a vacation. He wants to be sure he’s back for the hearing but it may mean putting off the whole operation another couple months, but then DeMarco has to be in Fresno for a trial in March.

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“You know something’s happening here but you don’t know what it is, do you, Mr. Jones?” Bob Dylan, 1965

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They worked it out that the hearing on Donald Steier’s latest arguments to seal documents will be March 5th.

(I could have sworn I saw a Hawaiian shirt in Steier’s briefcase, but he slammed it shut real quick.)

“I’ll get the briefing done in my absence,” he said in short curt tones, like to say – you people are causing me such an inconvenience. The judge and plaintiff attorneys are forcing him to work while he’s in the Bahamas or wherever. “It’s not our fault,” Steier said.

Judge: I know, I just hope in my lifetime we get the stuff in the jury room moved into storage.

Steier: Well you don’t even have these files. (He is bristling)

DeMarco: Would you mind telling the court the anticipated length of this next brief?

Steier: It will be a complete briefing.

DeMarco: Are we talking about another 50-page–?

Judge: He needs my permission to file a 50-page brief.

Steier: Well there’s constitutional law issues, and if the court – I will write it to any deadline you set.

(You get the feeling Donald Steier is a battery bunny on autopilot. He can file objections, file objections, copy and paste paragraphs, fill pages with legalspeak, stuff up everybody’s time and minds with mounds of arguments – then take off on vacation leaving the rest of the Court to wade through his work. What really bugs me is Steier’s tactic appears to be working. Steier is getting a lot of documents sealed. He’s wearing down the court system. The pervert priests get to keep their reputations.)

The Pervert Priests Get to Keep Their Reputations

Judge: The hearing has to be before Mr. Steier goes on vacation.

(Several attorneys overlap each other discussing exactly how many days prior to a hearing a briefing must be filed. Six of them get out hand-held digital devices to check their calendars.)

(Steier reaches in and caresses the fabric of the getaway shirt in his briefcase.)

The judge asks more questions about this trip Steier is taking. He glances back at me then says, May I approach the bench….

Continue reading a longer version of this post with video and more pictures   Posted by Kay Ebeling, producer of City of Angels Blog since Jan. 2007

Dive in the files and find the felonies

It had been one short wet ride after another for the two hitchhiking boys. They’d been on the onramp for hours when more rain came. The Arizona-Calexico region got 14 inches after Hurricane Heather that August 1977, but two teenagers hitchhiking to the Haight Ashbury weren’t thinking about the weather. Finally headlights approached and slowed to a stop. The boys didn’t even look in the car, just jumped inside.

The driver said in an Irish brogue that he worked and lived at a Catholic Church where there was a place for hitchhikers to clean up, even have a bed to sleep in.

Around two AM the boys burst out of the church doors, one vomited on the side of the road. They ran into the town of Holtville, California, and found a cop.

Soon, officers with weapons drawn heard loud thumps coming from the room in back of the Church where the priest lived. Then…

Out came Father John Daly totally naked, holding the right and left doors wide open with the light pouring down on him, all 250 pounds of his body billowing in the rain and early morning light.

The naked priest snarled as a young Mike Shoemaker identified the priest who sexually assaulted him through the police car window. (In late 2007 Shoemaker won a settlement with the San Diego Archdiocese over the incident.)

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Summer 2006 the arresting officer Dutton testified in deposition for Mike’s case against the San Diego Archdiocese, which settled in 2007.

DUTTON: “I’ve looked at the report you’ve handed me and it’s incomplete.”

Q: When you say it’s incomplete, what do you mean?

DUTTON: Well the statements aren’t there, the evidence list isn’t there, the copies of the reports that I received from La Mesa and other places about him aren’t there.

Q: Are you talking about the NCIC?

A: No those are also not here. NCIC is not here CI&I is not here if I ran it, I’m sure I did, but also the police reports or whatever department reports from other law enforcement agencies are also not here in what they provided you. And we did receive those and those were made part of the investigative file.

===========================

Holtville is a small town today and in 1977 with no radio, TV, or news report, word got out that Father Daly had been arrested. Dutton testified that people from town started to call, with stories about Father Daly coming out of the rectory with a young boy, and his fly was open.

Mike and Mark stayed in a nearby motel sleeping for several days after John Daly’s arrest.

As they slept the Catholic protect-the-perpetrator machinery went into action.

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(This letter is in the exhibits from Mike Shoemaker’s case against the San Diego Archdiocese, a letter from the local church attorney to Bishop Maher in San Diego explaining how the local parish dispatched of the Father John Daly problem:)

To Bishop Maher

San Diego

Diocesesan office for apostolic Ministry in Alcalala Park, San Diego

“Mr. Flourd, attorney, contacted me, Mark A. Medaer, voluntarily, to engage my assistance in a legal matter.

“On Friday Father John and myself were called to the office of Mr. Flourd. We were told that the District Attorney considered the case “a chargeable criminal complaint.” Mr. Flourd echoing hints from other sources, advised us that if Father John would leave his post he thought some authorities could “argue down” the case with any dissenting parties.

Father John and myself consulted. At 2:00 PM Father Daly decided to go to El Carmelo Retreat, awaiting instructions from the Bishop. (sloppy typing here) Mr. Flourd was advised of the move. He would contact the District Attorney. At 3:00 PM Father John left.

I contacted Father Richard Duncanson and Msgr William Cooney.

“NO COMPLAINT BEING FILED, (their caps) I did not think it necessary to contact the Chancery, knowing furthermore that our Bishop and Chancellor were absent.

======================

DALY’S SENTENCE: A MONTH IN A RETREAT

John Daly went to El Carmelo Retreat House on August 17, three days after the incident, “upon the advice of Mr. Lewis Flourd, attorney at El Centro…

Continue reading the long version of this post at City of Angels Blog:

BARE NAKED Father Daly Burst Out and Turned Himself in to Police Surrounding the Church

Posted by Kay Ebeling, Producer, City of Angels Blog

(Summer Rerun: This 8-part series* began November 20, 2009, at City of Angels Blog by Kay Ebeling)

Part One: The bishop of San Diego used the words “dumping ground” in 1950 when he wrote to the Vatican that too many problem priests were ending up in Banning, Beaumont and other towns in the developing region. By the 1960s the Franciscans had moved 26 priests from San Diego to Santa Barbara, where they then raped more than 60 children. The letter to Rev. James T. Booth in Rome April 26, 1950, is Exhibit A attached to two new lawsuits filed Nov. 3, 2009, in Santa Barbara Superior Court.

Franciscan pedophiles removed from the priesthood in past years, are now showing up as therapists and teachers- Working with Teenagers, Living near Children- in towns around the Northwestern United States, because the Francicans continue to hide the crimes of their pedophile priests, other evidence in the Complaints shows.

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* (Series Continues with Part Two “A New Sex Crime Ploy by Franciscans” Part Three: “Money Available for Therapy for Victims” Part Four “Franciscan Grabbed Freshman by the Genitals” Part Five: “Pedophilia is a Privacy Right for Franciscans” and Part 6 is here “Priests Take Boys on Drunken Camping Trip.” Part 7 is here “First Year in Seminary, Assaulted by two Franciscans”)
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There are so many new charges, so much new evidence, new stories about old pedophile priests and old stories about new ones in the pages of these two new lawsuits filed November 3 in Santa Barbara that City of Angels has to break our reporting into several different parts.

The letter from the Bishop of San Diego to the Pope in 1950 reads:

“During the thirteen years since this Diocese was erected, to my own personal knowledge, the Saint Barbara Province of the Franciscan Fathers has used this Diocese as a dumping ground for their moral, mental and physical problems. It became necessary for me some time ago to demand the withdrawal of one misfit after another. (From Exhibit A, attached as evidence to two new lawsuits filed November 3, 2009 in Santa Barbara Superior Court.)

The Complaint then says the Bishop was frustrated with the Franciscans and began applying to religious bodies in Rome to evict the problem Franciscan Friars from parishes in the Diocese of San Diego.

“It would appear the Bishop eventually succeeded,” read the Complaints, “and sometime in the 1950s the Franciscans made Santa Barbara their new dumping ground for Franciscan perpetrators.”

The legal briefs read like literature, so here are paragraphs, City of Angels copy-and-pasted from Paragraphs of two First Complaints, written by Tim Hale of the Nye Peabody Stirling & Hale lawfirm in Santa Barbara.

“Franciscan perpetrators have been sexually assaulting children in Santa Barbara since at least 1936. During this time at least forty-four (44) pedophilic and/or ephebophilic Roman Catholic priests or religious brothers have been assigned to work at and were living at and/or visiting various locations around Santa Barbara County.”

Beginning in the late 1950s the Franciscans began sending the first of at least twenty-six (26) Franciscan perpetrators to Santa Barbara following their expulsion from the San Diego Diocese. Those perpetrators are identified in the longer version of this story posted today at City of Angels Blog

By the 1960s if not sooner these corrupt seeds planted by the Franciscans began bearing poisonous fruit as Franciscan perpetrators abused Santa Barbara children at a horrifying rate.

At least eighty-five (85) children have been sexually abused in Santa Barbara by Roman Catholic priests or religious brothers since 1936. Sixty-two (62) of those children were abused by Franciscan priests or religious brothers since 1960.

The confirmed number of victims and Franciscan perpetrators grows each year.

The consequences of the Franciscans’ continuing corporate practices with regards to Franciscan perpetrators have been disastrous both for local children, and for a society that continues to bear the financial burden of the psychological fallout for abuse survivors.

Story posted by Kay Ebeling continues at City of Angels Blog

When Michael Baumann started Off My Knees in fall 2008, he found other victims of pedophile priest Robert Gibson “who told almost exactly the exact same story as mine.”

Baumann told City of Angels, “The first emails were kind of strange, asking leading questions. I decided to email back, did he abuse you as well? They were victims of Robert Gibson. One was a sibling of a classmate, not a classmate, but Gibson was his parish priest. Names came back from our very small high school. There were only 42 kids in the graduating class of Notre Dame in East Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania.”

“Since starting the blog last October, I’ve talked to or corresponded with probably fifteen people from the Scranton area that had a connection to Father Gibson. They write they’re concerned if siblings had been abused by him. One wrote an email, I recognized her name from my classmate, she was a friend of the family.

“She said her biggest fear when her mother passed away was that Gibson would show up at the funeral, because she was pretty sure that her two older brothers were abused by him. She was pretty sure they had been raped by Gibson.

“She alluded to conversations she had, problems her brothers had. I’ll be honest, one reason I joined the Navy was to get the hell out of Pennsylvania, I think it’s mostly because of him.”

Baumann says Gibson isolated him and molested him for a six month period when he was thirteen years old

Since starting Off My Knees, Baumann is convinced blogs bring power and control of the message to the survivors. “To use a military term, we should use blogs and technology as a Force Multiplier, to make us more effective,” Baumann says. (See more on Network of Bloggers idea at bottom of blog at City of Angels here.)

“Since starting the blog last October, I’ve talked to or corresponded with probably fifteen people from the Scranton area that had a connection to Father Gibson. They write they’re concerned if siblings had been abused by him. One wrote an email, I recognized her name from my classmate, she was a friend of the family.

“She said her biggest fear when her mother passed away was that Gibson would show up at the funeral, because she was pretty sure that her two older brothers were abused by him. She was pretty sure they had been raped by Gibson.

“She alluded to conversations she had, problems her brothers had. I’ll be honest, one reason I joined the Navy was to get the hell out of Pennsylvania, I think it’s mostly because of him.”

Baumann says Gibson isolated him and molested him for a six month period when he was thirteen years old.

Baumann, a retired military officer now living and working in Virginia, describes how Gibson in a way stalked him past high school.

“I went to college in Scranton,” Baumann said.

After graduating from Notre Dame in 1978, Baumann attended the University of Scranton, in Pennsylvania.

“Gibson rolls into the restaurant where I was working downtown Scranton. Right away, I wanted to bolt. To go to my room, empty my bank account, go to the bus station, and go anywhere my money would take me.”

Baumann entered the Navy as an Ensign in 1982 as soon as he graduated college.

Gibson says he enlisted in part to get away from Gibson and Pennsylvania and everything from his teen years, post Gibson. (Story continues here)

****Posted by Kay Ebeling, producer, City of Angels Blog since January 2007.

I finally figured out what bothers me about the Vatican and bishops bantering around the words “protect the children,” a phrase that pops up over and over in news stories about pedophile priest crimes, such as this from today’s Associated Press:

“The Vatican spokesman said justice for the victims and the protection of children remain a priority. The three plaintiffs filed a motion on Monday asking a federal judge in Louisville, Kentucky, to dismiss their claims….”

After thousands of pedophile priest crimes exposed in last 20 years, the Catholic Church has No Credibility on the issue of child protection. None at all. The sound byte they use should be changed to:

“Making sure child rape never happens again in the Catholic Church remains a priority.” Say it like it is.

“Protecting children” does not even need to be said, it’s a no brainer, goes without saying.

The news is going to bishops for quotes because thousands of priests raped children in Catholic Churches around the world.

The focus here should be on prosecuting criminals, and, I mean, do we really need to take up media and print space to say, “protect children”?

In most human beings protecting children comes by instinct.

These guys are CRIMINALS! Don’t quote them, expose them.

***** Posted by Kay Ebeling of City of Angels blog Original AP story

In sworn deposition January 2010, Cardinal Roger Mahony of L.A. repeated, “You have to remember the times,” when asked why he did not call the police in the 1980s about a pedophile priest. Documents scanned here, found in discovery for lawsuits that settled against the L.A. Archdiocese in 2007, show plenty of interaction between Servants of the Paraclete pedophile priest treatment center in New Mexico and bishops around the country, including James Francis McIntyre, archbishop of Los Angeles in 1959.)

(SIDE TRIP: We are still looking for victims of Fr. Thomas Barry Horne of Bartlett, Illinois, 1940s to 1970s*)

Several American bishops have said in sworn testimony, how could they have know about pedophile priests? Truth is in the 1960s Timothy Manning, Archbishop of Los Angeles, was sending so many priests to Via Coeli in New Mexico (pictured), he was talking with center director Father Gerald Fitzgerald about opening a branch of the rehab center near Los Angeles.
Several American bishops have said in sworn testimony, how could they have know about pedophile priests? Truth is in the 1960s Timothy Manning, Archbishop of Los Angeles, was sending so many priests to Via Coeli in New Mexico (pictured), he was talking with center director Father Gerald Fitzgerald about opening a branch of the rehab center near Los Angeles.

Below, McNamara testifies for the LA Clergy Cases about the relationship between the LA Archdiocese and Via Coeli in a June 2007 deposition. He confirms he and Father Gerald took bishops from all over the country on tours of the rehab center. Also below, Letters from 1959 and 1960. reveal a regular conversation between hierarchy “padres” about the pedophile priest problem in the LA Archdiocese and at St. John’s Seminary in Camarillo Ca. (A young McNamara is pictured at right.)

To click documents to enlarge, read, and print go here

The above letter from William J. Kenneally to James Francis Cardinal McIntyre, then Archbishop of Los Angeles (April 6, 1959, date of this letter) significant because it references Via Coeli and conversations between McIntyre and Kenneally, who was Rector of St. John’s Seminary in Camarillo, California, at the time.

Yes, St. John’s Seminary, where future pedophiles were trained by practicing pedophiles, and later turned loose on the Southern California population as parish priests.

QUOTES OF NOTE FROM THE April 6, 1959 Kenneally letter above:

“A recent letter from a priest guest at Via Coeli informs me that they have begun a series of informal lectures there for padres. I do not know whether there is any information between this fact and our recent conversations, but I thought Your Eminence might like to know this fact.”

Reveals that the Archbishop of LA and the Rector of St. John’s seminary discussed priests with sexual problems and treatment at Via Coeli in 1959.

Also in the above letter they discuss a pedophile priest Cleve Carey, from the era. We have the Rector of St. John’s Seminary saying:

FATHER CLEVE W. CAREY

“Many thanks for deciding the case of MR. CLEVE CAREY whose scrutinium was somewhat uncomplimentary. Actually we felt the same about it as does Your Eminence.”

The Rector of the seminary and the Archbishop of Los Angeles here are talking over Cleve Carey, soon to become a pedophile priest.

And it’s 1959!!!!

This post continues as posted today at City of Angels here