A judge has scheduled a hearing for next week to determine whether Orange County's Roman Catholic bishop should be held in contempt of court for allegedly sending a witness out of the country before he could fully testify in a sex abuse case.Orange County Superior Court Judge Gail Andler set a hearing date of Oct. 9 for Bishop Tod D. Brown, according to attorneys for both Brown and the plaintiff. Brown must be present at the contempt hearing.
Attorneys for a woman who sued over alleged sexual abuse asked for hearing after a high-ranking church official left for Canada for treatment of an undisclosed medical condition before he could be fully deposed in the case.
Plaintiff's attorney Venus Soltan alleges that Brown ordered Msgr. John Urell, who handled sexual abuse allegations against the diocese, to leave the country because he had potentially damaging information about sex abuse cases.
Urell is being currently treated at the Southdown Institute in Ontario, Canada, and won't be available for questioning for at least three months, church attorneys said. According to its Web site, the Southdown Institute offers "residential and outpatient psychological treatment and spiritual guidance to clergy and vowed religious."
Urell's attorney, Patrick Hennessey, did not immediately return a call for comment Monday.
Peter Callahan, Brown's attorney, called the contempt hearing a stall tactic by plaintiff attorneys and said Brown was eager to get to trial. He also said plaintiff attorneys initially said they didn't need Urell to complete his deposition or testify at trial.
"The plaintiffs want to beat up the bishop in the newspaper and we would prefer that the trial take place in a court of law, with a jury," Callahan said. "Urell knows nothing about this particular matter, so I think this is all a stall technique."
The lawsuit was filed by a 26-year-old woman who alleges that lay teacher and coach Jeff Andrade had sex with her multiple times when she was a 16-year-old student at Mater Dei High School, a school run by the diocese.
The Diocese of Orange settled about 90 cases of sexual abuse in 2004 for $100 million, the largest clergy abuse settlement at the time.
The current case was the first to be filed since that global settlement, but the diocese now faces a total of four sex abuse lawsuits. Jury selection is scheduled to begin on Oct. 10.
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