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.”