Monday, April 18, 2011

Top U.S. lawyer on trail of Irish priests

Jeff Anderson, a 63-year old St. Paul, Minnesota attorney who gained fame for leading some 1,500 abuse lawsuits against Churches in the U.S., was in Dublin last week to investigate cases against Irish priests Francis Markey (83) and Patrick Joseph McCabe (75).

Anderson recently co-founded a London law firm with American-born UK lawyer Ann Olivarius in a cross-Atlantic effort to launch legal actions focusing on abusers who moved between Britain, Ireland and the U.S. during their careers.

Speaking with The Irish Emigrant from Dublin, he said he was in the city on a fact-finding mission in the hope that more charges can be brought against the pair and the organizations which he says facilitated their pedophilia.

Anderson’s firm recently launched a civil lawsuit on behalf of an alleged American victim of Francis Markey, who is accused of molesting the then eight-year-old boy in Granite Falls, Minnesota, almost 30 years ago.

Markey is currently in Ireland, having been extradited last year in relation to the rape of a 15-year-old boy in the 1960s. 

Disturbingly, however, Anderson said that he had received conflicting reports on Markey’s whereabouts.

“One source tells us he was detained, another that he was released on bail under supervision; we’re trying to get to the bottom of it,” Anderson said, before adding that more victims had come forward on hearing of his firm’s work.

“We have spoken with more of Markey’s victims; he left a long trail of abuse between here and the U.S. We intend to file at least two more civil cases, naming the Diocese of New Ulm in Minnesota, the Diocese of Clogher in Ireland, and the St. John of God order through which he was recycled.” Anderson said.

The initial suit filed in a court in Minneapolis named Clogher, New Ulm and the Servants of the Paraclete, an international Catholic congregation involved in the rehabilitation of priests, as co-defendants. 

The suit says officials knew that efforts to rehabilitate Markey were ineffective, yet after each stint, he was reinstated as a priest.

Treatment

In Ireland, Markey was suspended three times between 1964 and 1974 following allegations of child sexual abuse. Upon leaving Ireland for the U.S., he was sent to a facility in Jemez Springs, New Mexico for treatment in 1981, before being assigned to New Ulm in 1982.

He was removed after parents expressed concerns about his behavior, heading to South Bend, Indiana, from where he was extradited to Ireland after efforts by Garda units. 

Though Markey cannot be extradited back to the U.S., Anderson’s firm will be able to partner with his legal team in St. Paul, where he is based, to follow through with these civil suits.

Patrick Joseph McCabe served as a priest at St. Bernard’s Parish in Eureka, California from 1983 to 1985 before he was removed after a complaint that he made children sit on his knee during confession. 

He next served at St. Elizabeth’s Parish in Guerneville, California, before being removed in 1988.

Allegations against him surfaced in the U.S. after news broke of his arrest in relation to charges of molesting six boys in Ireland from 1973 to 1981. 

He is currently in custody in an Alameda County, California jail awaiting extradition to Ireland, a process which took a significant step forward Wednesday when the Alameda district court rejected the latest of his many appeals.

Anderson, who represents three of McCabe’s alleged victims, said he has temporarily withdrawn his clients' lawsuits against the Diocese of Santa Rosa, California, with the idea that further investigations will allow his team to increase the number of defendants.

“We represent three of his victims, and we’re in contact with more,” he said. “After filing in California we realized there was more to this story, and we didn’t have a sufficient amount of defendants listed. We came to Ireland to further our investigation.”

“International conspiracy”

In total, four men who claim they were abused by McCabe in the ‘80s have temporarily dropped their cases against the Diocese of Santa Rosa in order to expand their cases to include what Anderson termed “an international conspiracy,” stretching to Dublin.

It is expected the new cases will name a Servants of the Paraclete facility in New Mexico, the Archdiocese of Dublin and the Diocese of Santa Rosa as co-defendants. 

The Irish government’s 2009 Ryan Report into abuse within mainly Catholic Church institutions said that a Santa Rosa bishop, the late Mark Hurley, had enrolled McCabe even though he knew that he had been treated for pedophilia.

The claimants will allege negligence, fraud and conspiracy against those they claim helped transfer McCabe from Ireland to California despite knowing of his past.

Greg Horne (38) of Arcata, California recently identified himself as one of the four men involved in the case, saying at a press briefing that he's not concerned about money but simply wants to stop something similar from happening again.

“There's not enough money printed in the world to buy back what I had taken,” he said.

Lawyers for the Diocese of Santa Rosa say there is no evidence of misconduct in McCabe's file, and neither is there proof that Bishop Hurley was aware of his past. 

They add that the statue of limitations for the allegations has expired and that the cases are too old to be pursued.

Undeterred, Anderson, who operates on a no-win, no-fee basis, said he and his firm will keep up their intercontinental efforts to help victims of abuse, beginning with Markey and McCabe.

“We’re meeting over four days with leaders across the child protection and survivors movements to see how we can help,” he said.

“As lovely as Ireland is, I didn’t come here to see the place, I came because I feel our team can answer a need, and eventually make real progress on behalf of victims.”