*****
By Kay Ebeling
City of Angels Blog is going on hiatus until early 2008, but before signing off here are some things to read:
From Tom Doyle’s letter re a "Mass of Remembrance for Sex Abuse Survivors" (that really is how they announced it, a Mass for dead survivors. . . ) which took place November 28 in Newton, Mass.
“One of the fundamental problems with our Catholic approach to serious problems is the belief that some form of liturgy will bring a solution. Many of us believe the only ones who come away from such rituals feeling satisfied are those who planned them or took part in them. The fallacy is that such events effect healing.
“How can you or anyone expect them to take a liturgy seriously when true pastoral care has not only been ignored but refused.
“These efforts would be better spent by the cardinals and bishops in Massachusetts and other States working hard for legislative reform that would enable all sex abuse victims, to find redress and justice in the courts
“Many of us see such ventures as hypocritical or worse, as a calculated attempt to drum up positive publicity for an institutional Church that has clearly failed.”
Church hierarchy ask of priest rape survivors: “What more do they want.”
“Basically they want complete honesty which includes a concentrated effort to comprehend just how horrendous and toxic the actual sexual abuse has been as well as the on-going official Church response. No liturgy whether it’s a Mass of Remembrance or the dramatic but ineffective gestures by Cardinal O’Malley over a year ago will work. It will take a fundamental change in attitude and clerical culture. We clerics must start acting as if the words of Jesus really mean something: “Whenever you did this to the least of my brothers [or sisters] you did it for me.”
ME: ESPECIALLY WHEN YOU CONSIDER SOME OF US CAN’T EVEN ENTER A CHURCH -- ANY SONGS IN MY BIBLE STUDY MEETINGS THAT SOUND LIKE OLD CATHOLIC HYMNS MAKE ME HAVE TO GET UP AND LEAVE THE ROOM
ME: I Say what we need are therapy centers all over the country on the same scale as treatment centers that coddled pedophile priests for decades. Saunas, massage, group and personal therapy -- months long stays -- at the church’s expense
That's what we deserve and need.
=====
Writing about the bishops’ propensity to issue statements about world affairs, in an article titled: “Catholic Bishops versus Grownups”
Eugene Cullen Kennedy, wrote November 18, 2007
“The bishops should examine themselves about the moral implications of the choices they have made, for example, about dealing with the sex-abuse crisis by church personnel. What can Catholics make of recent pronouncements by church leaders that seem like talking points rather than deeply held moral convictions?
----
And the
LA TIMES FINALLY GETS IT
BUT. . .
This was at the very end of a long article about the investigation that finally put Michael Baker in prison. From Sunday December 9th story by John Spano:
“Loffredo said the only person who knew about Baker and the boy was a nun who worked in the parish, according to the victim.
"Once, the nun had walked into Baker's second-story room and found them together, kissing. She left without saying a word.
“A week later, Loffredo and Scott interviewed the nun at a retirement home in the San Fernando Valley. She denied knowing anything about any abuse.
“On the drive back, Loffredo told Scott he thought she was lying.
"I bet she's already on the phone with [Cardinal Roger] Mahony," he said.
The next day, Loffredo received a letter from the archdiocese that correctly identified the victim.
Michael Hennigan, a lawyer for the archdiocese, confirmed that the church later provided detectives with the man's correct surname. He said the church did not deliberately mislead investigators. Asked about detectives' assertion that church officials had not interviewed the victim or his family, he said: "I'm not aware of any reason why church officials would have . . . said they had interviewed people they had not interviewed."
=====
You can spend a week or so at either of these sites reading: (Copy and paste address into your search engine, I can't figure out how to get links in here.)
http://reform-network.net/
Voice from the Desert
Or
http://www.renegadecatholic.com/
for Jay Nelson’s collective writings
======
PLUS: CROSSES
Excerpts from “Crosses” published in 2007 are at:
http://www.trolleyarchive.com/Production/PhotoGroupView.aspx?pbid=4&msa=1&pgid=10734927
This one too
http://www.trolleyarchive.com/Default.aspx
"Crosses" is photos and life stories of a selection of survivors from around the country.
====
I’m going to spend the holiday season in a kind of spiritual pursuit, mainly because I NEED TO CALM DOWN so bad.
Also I need to reposition. The blog will continue at:
http://cityofangels4.blogspot.com
Hopefully with more art and possibly video next year.
Maybe I'll finally figure out how to make links link in this blog as well. . .
Enjoy the season and, me, I’m going to catch some Zzz’s like a beat. Rest up.
Monday, December 10, 2007
Friday, December 7, 2007
It’s likely there are thousands more crime victims of pedophile priests in LA, considering case #BC307934 alone
*****
By Kay Ebeling
My sister in is a news junkie. Every morning she goes out and walks up Haight St. to get the NY Times, the Chronicle, and a stack of the free dailies they have in San Francisco. Yet until we talked last week, she had never even heard about the one-year window in 2003 that allowed persons in California to file lawsuits against the Catholic Church, no matter how many years or decades back their rape by pedophile priests took place.
California Seminarians recruited boys into the priesthood and pedophilia at the same time. The older pedophiles developed younger pedophiles who then became parish priests around Southern California. Church hierarchy did not just allow pedophilia to take place, but they regularly promoted known perpetrators to high places in Education, Recruiting, and Advocacy, with titles such as Director of the Office of Family Life.
Known California pedophile priests instead of going to prisons, got new assignments where they’d have even more access to children, and more freedom to propagate their crimes. There was more going on here than benevolent neglect.
A quick read of just one complaint filed in the LA clergy cases leaves one thinking there are probably thousands more crime victims of Baker, Rucker, Boyer, Wempe, Loomis, Martini, Miani, Roemer, Hagenbach, Reilly, Burbank, Caffoe, Henry, Miani, Rodriguez, Falvey and the other Jesuits at Blessed Sacrament in Hollywood -- the list of perpetrator priests is lo-o-o-o-o-ong in LA alone.
Here are excerpts from the original complaint for just one of the 506 LA cases, written by plaintiff attorney Tony DeMarco of Kiesel, Boucher & Larson.
DeMarco, by the way, got a bachelor’s degree in Journalism before going on to law school. . .
===
Quotes from the Complaint # BC307934, filed December 17, 2003:
From 1955 through 2002 at least 28 high ranking priests within the LA Archdiocese inner circle who have been accused or convicted of sex abuse, occupied the highest positions.
Well placed priests including Bishops Juan Arzube and G. Patrick Ziemann “used their prominence in the archdiocese administration to cover up for other priests.
Priests involved in education such as Leland Boyer and Gerald Fessard utilized their positions of authority to gain access to victims and then to funnel the children they molested into seminaries and the priesthood.
These 26 priests and likely many others occupied positions such as Auxiliary Bishops, Vicar for Clergy, Vicars General, deans, and teachers at local seminaries and as recruiters for seminaries.
The elevation of child molesters to these positions helps explain why so many child molesting priests were protected by the Defendant Doe Archdiocese, how so many child molesters became priests, and how so many seminarians and priests became child molesters.
THE PRESENCE OF SUCH A HIGH NUMBER OF MOLESTERS IN THE ARCHDIOCESE underscores the institutional and cultural acceptance and acquiescence that is concordant with the systematic failure of the Defendant Doe Archdiocese to take appropriate action to prevent further abuse.
EDUCATION:
Child molester priests congregated in three arms of archdiocesan religious education. Administrators, faculty at the Junior Seminary, members of the Cocations Commission who acted as recruiters for Junior and Major Seminaries.
In these capacities child molester priests had increased opportunities to seek out additional victims who they then steered into the seminary.
Once they were preyed upon and, for too many, inculcated into a perverse lifestyle, the only thing unacceptable about molesting children was being caught by someone that might complain.
There can be little doubt that this systematic molestation of children at the seminaries, grade schools and parishes, was known within the community of priests. Fellow priests did nothing to prevent the continuation of abuse because they themselves were molesting, or they feared reprisal from the high ranking priests who were child molesters.
More after this:
*****$$$???!!!
Have a cosmic experience, an ethereal renewal. Click the PayPal button at the top of the left hand column to subscribe to City of Angels Blog 21st Century Style. Send any amount of money you want to my PayPal account for “Readership” to keep the blog and the blog’s producer alive. Also every time you click on a Google ad I make something like 2 cents so Click, click, click.
END COMMERCIAL BREAK
The complaint gives short bios on the following priests:
Leland Boyer
Joseph Sharpe
G. Patrick Ziemann
Gerald Fessard
Edward Dober
Richard Martini
John Farris
John Dougherty
Stephen Hernandez
Fidencio Silva
Patrick Roemer
All of these were associated with Our Lady Queen of Angels Junior Seminary
MORE FROM COMPLAINT:
For much if not all of this time the Defendant Doe Archdiocese and the Vatican have been aware of priests’ sexual improprieties with young boys.
In his capacity as Auxiliary Bishop, Arzube exercised extraordinary influence in promoting other pedophiles within the priesthood and in aiding coverups and transfers of molesting priests. One such molester that Arzube had a direct part in promoting was Joseph Pina, who for many years served at St. Alphonsus parish in Los Angeles.
Also:
Richard Loomis: Vicar for Clergy, received complaints re priests.
Clinton Hagenbach:
Not less than 11 children at several different parishes and hospitals that were molested by Clinton Hagenbach throughout his career have come forward. At his parish assignment, Hagenbach regularly had boys alone with him in his rectory bedroom in which he maintained a fraternity house like environment that was obvious to parish staff and fellow priests. In 1978 he joined McLaughlin, the pastor at his parish, as an
(Hagenbach in 1981 was) elevated to being a Judge in the Synodal Tribunals of the defendant Doe Archdiocese, where he remained until 1986 shortly before his death.
Several other priests are listed:
Thomas Havel
Michael Wempe - Scores of children who were molested by Father Michael Wempe throughout the late 1960s through the 1980s have come forward. In the late 1960s Wempe was made an “Advocate and Notary for the Archdiocese Courts.”
Peter Garcia
George Scott
David Cousineau
George Gunst
All elevated to high positions
Theodore Llanos - was not removed after complaints were raised in the 1970s and 1980s. Rather in the early 1990s he was elevated to the personnel board.
On the Personnel Board Llanos could influence decisions regarding whether child molester priests should go to treatment or evaluation, whether they should be removed, or transferred, and if so to where.
Louis Stallkamp
Micahael Baker - after returning from Jemez Springs for treatment assigned to the Office of Vicar for Clergy under his friend timothy Dyer who was Vicar for Clergy.
Rene Carlos Rodriguez
After complaints about abuse of 4 children he was promoted to Director of the Office of Family Life in Santa Barbara for the Los Angeles archdiocese. “in that post he had regular contact with Catholic families and children, often visiting them in their homes.”
In at least one case “Rodriguez molested the three -- brothers 1988 - 1994
On page 41 of 47 of the complaint: Conclusions
“As a result of dangerous conditions created by Defendant Archdiocese Defendant Does 2 - 16
“The sexual abuse of plaintiffs by the perpetrators arose from, was incidental to, and was in the course and scope of the Perpatrators influence with defendant archdiocese, Defendant Doe Schools, parishes and orders and Doe’s 16 - 1000
(YES, IN THIS ONE COMPLAINT THERE WERE ONE THOUSAND DEFENDANT DOE’S.)
“And each of these Defendants ratified or approved of that sexual contact.
(At all times Defendants) knew that the Perpetrators had a history of committing sexual assaults against children and that any child at, among other locations, Defendant Does 2-16 schools and parishes, and hospitals, were at risk to be sexually assaulted by the Perpetrators.
Archdiocese “Knew or should have known children were at risk to be sexually assaulted.”
More to come. . .
*****$$$???!!!
Have a cosmic experience, an ethereal renewal. Click the PayPal button at the top of the left hand column to subscribe to City of Angels Blog 21st Century Style. Send any amount of money you want to my PayPal account for “Readership” to keep the blog and the blog’s producer alive. Also every time you click on a Google ad I make something like 2 cents so Click, click, click.
END COMMERCIAL BREAK
By Kay Ebeling
My sister in is a news junkie. Every morning she goes out and walks up Haight St. to get the NY Times, the Chronicle, and a stack of the free dailies they have in San Francisco. Yet until we talked last week, she had never even heard about the one-year window in 2003 that allowed persons in California to file lawsuits against the Catholic Church, no matter how many years or decades back their rape by pedophile priests took place.
California Seminarians recruited boys into the priesthood and pedophilia at the same time. The older pedophiles developed younger pedophiles who then became parish priests around Southern California. Church hierarchy did not just allow pedophilia to take place, but they regularly promoted known perpetrators to high places in Education, Recruiting, and Advocacy, with titles such as Director of the Office of Family Life.
Known California pedophile priests instead of going to prisons, got new assignments where they’d have even more access to children, and more freedom to propagate their crimes. There was more going on here than benevolent neglect.
A quick read of just one complaint filed in the LA clergy cases leaves one thinking there are probably thousands more crime victims of Baker, Rucker, Boyer, Wempe, Loomis, Martini, Miani, Roemer, Hagenbach, Reilly, Burbank, Caffoe, Henry, Miani, Rodriguez, Falvey and the other Jesuits at Blessed Sacrament in Hollywood -- the list of perpetrator priests is lo-o-o-o-o-ong in LA alone.
Here are excerpts from the original complaint for just one of the 506 LA cases, written by plaintiff attorney Tony DeMarco of Kiesel, Boucher & Larson.
DeMarco, by the way, got a bachelor’s degree in Journalism before going on to law school. . .
===
Quotes from the Complaint # BC307934, filed December 17, 2003:
From 1955 through 2002 at least 28 high ranking priests within the LA Archdiocese inner circle who have been accused or convicted of sex abuse, occupied the highest positions.
Well placed priests including Bishops Juan Arzube and G. Patrick Ziemann “used their prominence in the archdiocese administration to cover up for other priests.
Priests involved in education such as Leland Boyer and Gerald Fessard utilized their positions of authority to gain access to victims and then to funnel the children they molested into seminaries and the priesthood.
These 26 priests and likely many others occupied positions such as Auxiliary Bishops, Vicar for Clergy, Vicars General, deans, and teachers at local seminaries and as recruiters for seminaries.
The elevation of child molesters to these positions helps explain why so many child molesting priests were protected by the Defendant Doe Archdiocese, how so many child molesters became priests, and how so many seminarians and priests became child molesters.
THE PRESENCE OF SUCH A HIGH NUMBER OF MOLESTERS IN THE ARCHDIOCESE underscores the institutional and cultural acceptance and acquiescence that is concordant with the systematic failure of the Defendant Doe Archdiocese to take appropriate action to prevent further abuse.
EDUCATION:
Child molester priests congregated in three arms of archdiocesan religious education. Administrators, faculty at the Junior Seminary, members of the Cocations Commission who acted as recruiters for Junior and Major Seminaries.
In these capacities child molester priests had increased opportunities to seek out additional victims who they then steered into the seminary.
Once they were preyed upon and, for too many, inculcated into a perverse lifestyle, the only thing unacceptable about molesting children was being caught by someone that might complain.
There can be little doubt that this systematic molestation of children at the seminaries, grade schools and parishes, was known within the community of priests. Fellow priests did nothing to prevent the continuation of abuse because they themselves were molesting, or they feared reprisal from the high ranking priests who were child molesters.
More after this:
*****$$$???!!!
Have a cosmic experience, an ethereal renewal. Click the PayPal button at the top of the left hand column to subscribe to City of Angels Blog 21st Century Style. Send any amount of money you want to my PayPal account for “Readership” to keep the blog and the blog’s producer alive. Also every time you click on a Google ad I make something like 2 cents so Click, click, click.
END COMMERCIAL BREAK
The complaint gives short bios on the following priests:
Leland Boyer
Joseph Sharpe
G. Patrick Ziemann
Gerald Fessard
Edward Dober
Richard Martini
John Farris
John Dougherty
Stephen Hernandez
Fidencio Silva
Patrick Roemer
All of these were associated with Our Lady Queen of Angels Junior Seminary
MORE FROM COMPLAINT:
For much if not all of this time the Defendant Doe Archdiocese and the Vatican have been aware of priests’ sexual improprieties with young boys.
In his capacity as Auxiliary Bishop, Arzube exercised extraordinary influence in promoting other pedophiles within the priesthood and in aiding coverups and transfers of molesting priests. One such molester that Arzube had a direct part in promoting was Joseph Pina, who for many years served at St. Alphonsus parish in Los Angeles.
Also:
Richard Loomis: Vicar for Clergy, received complaints re priests.
Clinton Hagenbach:
Not less than 11 children at several different parishes and hospitals that were molested by Clinton Hagenbach throughout his career have come forward. At his parish assignment, Hagenbach regularly had boys alone with him in his rectory bedroom in which he maintained a fraternity house like environment that was obvious to parish staff and fellow priests. In 1978 he joined McLaughlin, the pastor at his parish, as an
(Hagenbach in 1981 was) elevated to being a Judge in the Synodal Tribunals of the defendant Doe Archdiocese, where he remained until 1986 shortly before his death.
Several other priests are listed:
Thomas Havel
Michael Wempe - Scores of children who were molested by Father Michael Wempe throughout the late 1960s through the 1980s have come forward. In the late 1960s Wempe was made an “Advocate and Notary for the Archdiocese Courts.”
Peter Garcia
George Scott
David Cousineau
George Gunst
All elevated to high positions
Theodore Llanos - was not removed after complaints were raised in the 1970s and 1980s. Rather in the early 1990s he was elevated to the personnel board.
On the Personnel Board Llanos could influence decisions regarding whether child molester priests should go to treatment or evaluation, whether they should be removed, or transferred, and if so to where.
Louis Stallkamp
Micahael Baker - after returning from Jemez Springs for treatment assigned to the Office of Vicar for Clergy under his friend timothy Dyer who was Vicar for Clergy.
Rene Carlos Rodriguez
After complaints about abuse of 4 children he was promoted to Director of the Office of Family Life in Santa Barbara for the Los Angeles archdiocese. “in that post he had regular contact with Catholic families and children, often visiting them in their homes.”
In at least one case “Rodriguez molested the three -- brothers 1988 - 1994
On page 41 of 47 of the complaint: Conclusions
“As a result of dangerous conditions created by Defendant Archdiocese Defendant Does 2 - 16
“The sexual abuse of plaintiffs by the perpetrators arose from, was incidental to, and was in the course and scope of the Perpatrators influence with defendant archdiocese, Defendant Doe Schools, parishes and orders and Doe’s 16 - 1000
(YES, IN THIS ONE COMPLAINT THERE WERE ONE THOUSAND DEFENDANT DOE’S.)
“And each of these Defendants ratified or approved of that sexual contact.
(At all times Defendants) knew that the Perpetrators had a history of committing sexual assaults against children and that any child at, among other locations, Defendant Does 2-16 schools and parishes, and hospitals, were at risk to be sexually assaulted by the Perpetrators.
Archdiocese “Knew or should have known children were at risk to be sexually assaulted.”
More to come. . .
*****$$$???!!!
Have a cosmic experience, an ethereal renewal. Click the PayPal button at the top of the left hand column to subscribe to City of Angels Blog 21st Century Style. Send any amount of money you want to my PayPal account for “Readership” to keep the blog and the blog’s producer alive. Also every time you click on a Google ad I make something like 2 cents so Click, click, click.
END COMMERCIAL BREAK
Thursday, December 6, 2007
New dates for Salesians cases, but Salesian victims get their checks with the rest of LA plaintiffs
*****
By Kay Ebeling
April 14 and August 25, 2008 are new jury trial dates for LA civil cases regarding the Salesians religious order, in Judge Emilie Elias' court, Division 310.
However, LA plaintiff attorneys, savvy from watching the Salesians’ past performance avoiding final justice, negotiated payments for the 17 Salesian related plaintiffs to be part of the total LA settlement. In other words the 17 Salesian victims whose cases go to trial in 2008, did get settlement checks this week with the rest of the LA plaintiffs.
“The Archbishop is to pay an average of $1.502 million to each of the 17 plaintiffs with claims against the Salesians,” as spelled out in Judge Haley Fromholz’ final order regarding the Clergy Cases, November 27th.
Attorneys for the Salesians last week tried to hold up all 506 payments to LA plaintiffs, but even the LA Archdiocese wouldn't stoop that low. “The Archbishop states that the $1.502 million amount is fair in light of what plaintiffs have received as jury verdicts in clergy abuse cases.”
More to come. . .
By Kay Ebeling
April 14 and August 25, 2008 are new jury trial dates for LA civil cases regarding the Salesians religious order, in Judge Emilie Elias' court, Division 310.
However, LA plaintiff attorneys, savvy from watching the Salesians’ past performance avoiding final justice, negotiated payments for the 17 Salesian related plaintiffs to be part of the total LA settlement. In other words the 17 Salesian victims whose cases go to trial in 2008, did get settlement checks this week with the rest of the LA plaintiffs.
“The Archbishop is to pay an average of $1.502 million to each of the 17 plaintiffs with claims against the Salesians,” as spelled out in Judge Haley Fromholz’ final order regarding the Clergy Cases, November 27th.
Attorneys for the Salesians last week tried to hold up all 506 payments to LA plaintiffs, but even the LA Archdiocese wouldn't stoop that low. “The Archbishop states that the $1.502 million amount is fair in light of what plaintiffs have received as jury verdicts in clergy abuse cases.”
More to come. . .
Wednesday, December 5, 2007
'We are not done,' said the LA DA. No wonder people want to beat up Mahony when they see him on the street
*****
By Kay Ebeling
After Michael Baker’s sentencing Monday, the DA said, “I have reason to believe there are other victims who have not identified themselves to law enforcement, or to our office. I hope those victims will be willing to disclose to sheriff’s investigators what happened to them.”
In other words if we want Baker to stay in prison longer than two years, and other priests and hierarchy to join him, more victims have to come forward and talk to the Target Crimes division of the DA’s office.
Meanwhile, it's no wonder people want to beat up Roger Mahony when they see him on the street, after watching the Cardinal orchestrate limp justice in the clergy cases the past five years.
Former priest Michael Baker, who preyed on Southern California and Arizona parishes for decades, looked healthy and happy in court Monday as he was sentenced to 10 years 8 months, knowing that with time off for good behavior he’d be out in about two years. Baker was clean and fresh, serene, self-assured. Plus his sentencing was cut and dried, a bureaucratic procedure really. For the first hour or so a prosecutor stood at a podium droning out rote wording, “You will report to your parole officer within five days of your release, you will report every time you change addresses.”
Baker got away with brutally raping little boys on church grounds, even after he’d been ordered to stay away from children. Will California’s wimpy criminal justice system keep him down? Will “a couple” years in a California leisure prison reform Michael Baker?
At the press conference after Baker’s sentencing, it was the lone broke blogger, me, with my Goodwill tape recorder that, yes, worked -- in a room full of mainstream media reporters -- it was the broke blogger who asked the tough questions. When I realized the rest of them had no idea what to ask, I piped in:
“Now that we know Mahony lied under oath in depositions, since what he said does not match up with the truth that's come out in civil case documents, and now that we see he continued to transfer Baker and other known predator priests to parish after parish,
“When are you going to indict Cardinal Mahony?
A laugh trickled around the press room but I wasn’t joking. DA William Hodgman, seemed surprised at the question at first. He chuckled too, then answered, “We have to follow the evidence and we will go where the evidence takes us.”
He added: “As far as cases in the future, we are not done.”
Every time I see Hodgman I get a visceral reaction. Sorry, but I can’t help it. Hodgman headed the OJ Simpson prosecution, his face was on Court TV as we all watched OJ get off for murder. OJ walked out of court a free man with much the same saunter as Michael Baker’s lilted gait as he left court Monday afternoon.
Unless more Baker victims come forward and talk to the DA, Baker will be a free man in “a couple years” Hodgman said.
Hodgman said., “All along the way despite popular sentiments, we have to be ethical, we have to be professional, and we have to proceed responsibly. To date we have brought cases where ethically we could have brought cases, and where we have cases where we have the evidence to do so--“
(I’m reminded of Marcia Clark’s endless droning in long drawn out sentences that didn’t say anything throughout OJ’s prosecution.)
Hodgman, cont’d.: “The Baker case is a fine example. The sheriff’s department did an amazing job. The sheriff did an amazing job with follow through with the investigation, developing the corroborative evidence that we needed so we could bring the Baker case.
“As far as cases in the future, we are not done. Our work is not done.”
“As far as cases in the future, we are not done. Our work is not done.”
Hodgman repeated that. He WANTS more crime victims to come forward. He wants to slap Baker and others with more charges and keep them in prison for more years.
He needs more victims to come forward. We need more victims to come forward.
Hodgman: “I have to be necessarily circumspect about where we will go. But I can tell you this, we will be consistent like we've been before.
More on Baker and Mahony after this:
*****$$$???!!!
Have a cosmic experience, an ethereal renewal. Click the PayPal button at the top of the left hand column to subscribe to City of Angels Blog 21st Century Style. Send any amount of money you want to my PayPal account for “Readership” to keep the blog and the blog’s producer alive. Also every time you click on a Google ad I make something like 2 cents so Click, click, click.
END COMMERCIAL BREAK
Most likely Baker will go to a privately financed leisure prison.
In California thanks to overcrowding and a totally out of whack justice system, a guy who sells a bag of crack to feed his habit does hard time for ten years -- but if you have money you can pay your own way and go to an “outsourced to the private sector” leisure prison.
California prisons are so crowded there can be 110 men sleeping in what used to be a utility room, with cots on the floor and true Third World hygiene conditions -- (You know someone is dead by the blood spilling out on the floor).
However, in California, because of the overcrowded public prisons, and our Third World Economy and current power structure, people with money--
Like former priest. Michael Stephen Baker,
almost always go to private prisons, where they pay their own way.
These are the prisons where the guys play tennis and cook their own gourmet food
That's where people with money go to serve prison terms in California --
CARDINAL MAHONY, WHAT DID YOU EXPECT but that people will want to attack you when they see you?
When you play PR games with the justice system.
You take part in a national legal strategy that causes a SMALL FRACTION of your church's crime victims to be able to come forward and go through legal processes and you pay them with
puny portions of your church’s fortune.
At the same time the Catholic PR machine puts out a major lie in the national and international media--
Mahony has said, “We hope these victims can now find closure.” He and the rest of church hierarchy now want to turn their backs on all of us, including the thousands who never filed lawsuits and haven’t been able to file criminal charges.
Mahony thinks he can go back to business as usual.
Cardinal M,
YOU ALLOWED little boys to be brutally raped, forcibly sodomized with their screams muffled in your priestly garments shoved in their faces.
YOU PROTECTED predator priests and let children leave your rectories with blood draining from their bodies.
YOU DID NOTHING
And when there was a chance to come forward and admit your crimes and face the public with humility, instead you lied.
You hired legions (actually lesions) of criminal corporate attorneys to protect the assets and asses of Catholic hierarchy, including yourself.
WITH NO CONCERN AT ALL FOR YOUR CHURCH'S CRIME VICTIMS
You showed how shallow is your apology by the way you apologized last July, to microphones, not to human beings.
WHAT DO YOU EXPECT? I think even me, with my crippled nerves and lowered upper body strength.
Mr. Mahony, if I saw you unprotected on a street I’d probably pick up the first heavy object I could find and slam you over the head myself.
THAT is the kind of wrath you have incurred in people
BECAUSE OF WHAT YOU DID.
What did you expect.
Better lay low for the rest of your life.
OR COME CLEAN and admit what you did
And let the whole story come out.
Every time there’s a settlement before a trial, the only one who really wins is the archdiocese that made the settlement.
BUT THE CRIMINALS ARE STILL IN THE HIERARCHY sipping sherry in very luxurious private rooms, chuckling over what they just pulled off and thinking they got away with.
They didn't.
More from the press conference after this:
*****$$$???!!!
Have a cosmic experience, an ethereal renewal. Click the PayPal button at the top of the left hand column to subscribe to City of Angels Blog 21st Century Style. Send any amount of money you want to my PayPal account for “Readership” to keep the blog and the blog’s producer alive. Also every time you click on a Google ad I make something like 2 cents so Click, click, click.
END COMMERCIAL BREAK
Here are my crude notes:
Hodgman: “We're going to proceed ethically, we're going to proceed professionally and we will go where the competent evidence takes us.”
Hodgman: I feel Baker’s sentencing is fair. Our two charge victims were spared the ordeal of having to go through a trial being subject to cross examination and to some degree all that goes along with having to talk about very private things in a very public forum.
So I think the disposition, the sentencing, was very fair. We had to give up something, the defense through their attorneys had to give up something. And it was a fair resolution to the case.
Hodgman, answering a reporter’s question re one of the John Doe’: “There was evidence of trips that were taken by the victim to bring him close to the defendant, but actually it was a family that moved into the vicinity of a parish in Pico Rivera and the then Father Baker befriended the family. There was a number of children. The family turned toward him and that's how it all began.
REPORTER: WHERE WAS HE WHEN THESE TWO SETS OF CRIMES TOOK PLACE
Hodgman: Well that is a little bit difficult to re-create, given where he was during the charges, when the two victims were between 14 and 18. Part of the period of time was at St. Columbkille Parish which is in Los Angeles. And part of the time when he was in the rectory at St. Camillus (de Lellis, Los Angeles). The rectory at St. Camillus.
There were other assignments during that time period as well. (He refers reporter to report from the people of God available at bishop accountability dot org and numerous other places.)
ME: HOW MUCH TIME WILL HE ACTUALLY SERVE, AND WHERE?
“In terms of where he’s going to go, we're not sure, that's up to the Department of Corrections. In terms of actual time, he, of course, gets credit for the time he spent in custody, which is now about 22 months, a little bit more, then if he, in a sense, keeps his nose clean in prison, he will be entitled to 50 percent credits, they do what they call good time work time credits.
Hodgman: “So it appears to be like a couple more years.”
MARY GRANT- will this make it easier for other victims of Baker if there are any, and what would you say to them now if a victim came forward?
HODGMAN: “Well first of all I have reason to believe there are other victims of Baker who have not identified themselves to law enforcement, or to our office. And I would hope that those victims would follow the path of John Doe and John Doe 2 which took a tremendous amount of courage, to be willing to disclose to these investigators what had happened to them.
“Specifically with regard to John Doe 2, the drama and dynamics of how he disclosed to the sheriff’s investigators probably will never come to light, but I can tell you for those who were there it was very, very profound.
“Victim Number Two had never disclosed to anyone prior to being contacted by our sheriff’s investigators, what had happened to him. And it was very emotional, very profound, and even for seasoned investigators an experience that they will never ever forget.
“I hope that other victims not only of Baker but other clergy sex abuse victims will have that same sort of strength and courage to come forward and speak to law enforcement, because the district attorney’s office will be there, as I stated.
“We will go where the evidence takes us. If there’s evidence of crimes that we can charge and prosecute, we will charge them and we will prosecute them.
JOHN SPANO (LA TIMES): How much longer do you think the investigation will last ?
John, I’ve given up any hope of trying to quantify that. In the spring of 2002 I anticipated a couple of years. It’s been well over five and a half years now so I think we will simply follow the evidence. If new evidence turns up at my doorstep tomorrow, then we're going to follow it and off we go again.
SPANO: Any new evidence since the Baker case last year that led to these charges?
HODGMAN: Yes, we have been at work in ways that we can’t address publicly but yes, new evidence has been gathered.
More to Come. . .
By Kay Ebeling
After Michael Baker’s sentencing Monday, the DA said, “I have reason to believe there are other victims who have not identified themselves to law enforcement, or to our office. I hope those victims will be willing to disclose to sheriff’s investigators what happened to them.”
In other words if we want Baker to stay in prison longer than two years, and other priests and hierarchy to join him, more victims have to come forward and talk to the Target Crimes division of the DA’s office.
Meanwhile, it's no wonder people want to beat up Roger Mahony when they see him on the street, after watching the Cardinal orchestrate limp justice in the clergy cases the past five years.
Former priest Michael Baker, who preyed on Southern California and Arizona parishes for decades, looked healthy and happy in court Monday as he was sentenced to 10 years 8 months, knowing that with time off for good behavior he’d be out in about two years. Baker was clean and fresh, serene, self-assured. Plus his sentencing was cut and dried, a bureaucratic procedure really. For the first hour or so a prosecutor stood at a podium droning out rote wording, “You will report to your parole officer within five days of your release, you will report every time you change addresses.”
Baker got away with brutally raping little boys on church grounds, even after he’d been ordered to stay away from children. Will California’s wimpy criminal justice system keep him down? Will “a couple” years in a California leisure prison reform Michael Baker?
At the press conference after Baker’s sentencing, it was the lone broke blogger, me, with my Goodwill tape recorder that, yes, worked -- in a room full of mainstream media reporters -- it was the broke blogger who asked the tough questions. When I realized the rest of them had no idea what to ask, I piped in:
“Now that we know Mahony lied under oath in depositions, since what he said does not match up with the truth that's come out in civil case documents, and now that we see he continued to transfer Baker and other known predator priests to parish after parish,
“When are you going to indict Cardinal Mahony?
A laugh trickled around the press room but I wasn’t joking. DA William Hodgman, seemed surprised at the question at first. He chuckled too, then answered, “We have to follow the evidence and we will go where the evidence takes us.”
He added: “As far as cases in the future, we are not done.”
Every time I see Hodgman I get a visceral reaction. Sorry, but I can’t help it. Hodgman headed the OJ Simpson prosecution, his face was on Court TV as we all watched OJ get off for murder. OJ walked out of court a free man with much the same saunter as Michael Baker’s lilted gait as he left court Monday afternoon.
Unless more Baker victims come forward and talk to the DA, Baker will be a free man in “a couple years” Hodgman said.
Hodgman said., “All along the way despite popular sentiments, we have to be ethical, we have to be professional, and we have to proceed responsibly. To date we have brought cases where ethically we could have brought cases, and where we have cases where we have the evidence to do so--“
(I’m reminded of Marcia Clark’s endless droning in long drawn out sentences that didn’t say anything throughout OJ’s prosecution.)
Hodgman, cont’d.: “The Baker case is a fine example. The sheriff’s department did an amazing job. The sheriff did an amazing job with follow through with the investigation, developing the corroborative evidence that we needed so we could bring the Baker case.
“As far as cases in the future, we are not done. Our work is not done.”
“As far as cases in the future, we are not done. Our work is not done.”
Hodgman repeated that. He WANTS more crime victims to come forward. He wants to slap Baker and others with more charges and keep them in prison for more years.
He needs more victims to come forward. We need more victims to come forward.
Hodgman: “I have to be necessarily circumspect about where we will go. But I can tell you this, we will be consistent like we've been before.
More on Baker and Mahony after this:
*****$$$???!!!
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END COMMERCIAL BREAK
Most likely Baker will go to a privately financed leisure prison.
In California thanks to overcrowding and a totally out of whack justice system, a guy who sells a bag of crack to feed his habit does hard time for ten years -- but if you have money you can pay your own way and go to an “outsourced to the private sector” leisure prison.
California prisons are so crowded there can be 110 men sleeping in what used to be a utility room, with cots on the floor and true Third World hygiene conditions -- (You know someone is dead by the blood spilling out on the floor).
However, in California, because of the overcrowded public prisons, and our Third World Economy and current power structure, people with money--
Like former priest. Michael Stephen Baker,
almost always go to private prisons, where they pay their own way.
These are the prisons where the guys play tennis and cook their own gourmet food
That's where people with money go to serve prison terms in California --
CARDINAL MAHONY, WHAT DID YOU EXPECT but that people will want to attack you when they see you?
When you play PR games with the justice system.
You take part in a national legal strategy that causes a SMALL FRACTION of your church's crime victims to be able to come forward and go through legal processes and you pay them with
puny portions of your church’s fortune.
At the same time the Catholic PR machine puts out a major lie in the national and international media--
Mahony has said, “We hope these victims can now find closure.” He and the rest of church hierarchy now want to turn their backs on all of us, including the thousands who never filed lawsuits and haven’t been able to file criminal charges.
Mahony thinks he can go back to business as usual.
Cardinal M,
YOU ALLOWED little boys to be brutally raped, forcibly sodomized with their screams muffled in your priestly garments shoved in their faces.
YOU PROTECTED predator priests and let children leave your rectories with blood draining from their bodies.
YOU DID NOTHING
And when there was a chance to come forward and admit your crimes and face the public with humility, instead you lied.
You hired legions (actually lesions) of criminal corporate attorneys to protect the assets and asses of Catholic hierarchy, including yourself.
WITH NO CONCERN AT ALL FOR YOUR CHURCH'S CRIME VICTIMS
You showed how shallow is your apology by the way you apologized last July, to microphones, not to human beings.
WHAT DO YOU EXPECT? I think even me, with my crippled nerves and lowered upper body strength.
Mr. Mahony, if I saw you unprotected on a street I’d probably pick up the first heavy object I could find and slam you over the head myself.
THAT is the kind of wrath you have incurred in people
BECAUSE OF WHAT YOU DID.
What did you expect.
Better lay low for the rest of your life.
OR COME CLEAN and admit what you did
And let the whole story come out.
Every time there’s a settlement before a trial, the only one who really wins is the archdiocese that made the settlement.
BUT THE CRIMINALS ARE STILL IN THE HIERARCHY sipping sherry in very luxurious private rooms, chuckling over what they just pulled off and thinking they got away with.
They didn't.
More from the press conference after this:
*****$$$???!!!
Have a cosmic experience, an ethereal renewal. Click the PayPal button at the top of the left hand column to subscribe to City of Angels Blog 21st Century Style. Send any amount of money you want to my PayPal account for “Readership” to keep the blog and the blog’s producer alive. Also every time you click on a Google ad I make something like 2 cents so Click, click, click.
END COMMERCIAL BREAK
Here are my crude notes:
Hodgman: “We're going to proceed ethically, we're going to proceed professionally and we will go where the competent evidence takes us.”
Hodgman: I feel Baker’s sentencing is fair. Our two charge victims were spared the ordeal of having to go through a trial being subject to cross examination and to some degree all that goes along with having to talk about very private things in a very public forum.
So I think the disposition, the sentencing, was very fair. We had to give up something, the defense through their attorneys had to give up something. And it was a fair resolution to the case.
Hodgman, answering a reporter’s question re one of the John Doe’: “There was evidence of trips that were taken by the victim to bring him close to the defendant, but actually it was a family that moved into the vicinity of a parish in Pico Rivera and the then Father Baker befriended the family. There was a number of children. The family turned toward him and that's how it all began.
REPORTER: WHERE WAS HE WHEN THESE TWO SETS OF CRIMES TOOK PLACE
Hodgman: Well that is a little bit difficult to re-create, given where he was during the charges, when the two victims were between 14 and 18. Part of the period of time was at St. Columbkille Parish which is in Los Angeles. And part of the time when he was in the rectory at St. Camillus (de Lellis, Los Angeles). The rectory at St. Camillus.
There were other assignments during that time period as well. (He refers reporter to report from the people of God available at bishop accountability dot org and numerous other places.)
ME: HOW MUCH TIME WILL HE ACTUALLY SERVE, AND WHERE?
“In terms of where he’s going to go, we're not sure, that's up to the Department of Corrections. In terms of actual time, he, of course, gets credit for the time he spent in custody, which is now about 22 months, a little bit more, then if he, in a sense, keeps his nose clean in prison, he will be entitled to 50 percent credits, they do what they call good time work time credits.
Hodgman: “So it appears to be like a couple more years.”
MARY GRANT- will this make it easier for other victims of Baker if there are any, and what would you say to them now if a victim came forward?
HODGMAN: “Well first of all I have reason to believe there are other victims of Baker who have not identified themselves to law enforcement, or to our office. And I would hope that those victims would follow the path of John Doe and John Doe 2 which took a tremendous amount of courage, to be willing to disclose to these investigators what had happened to them.
“Specifically with regard to John Doe 2, the drama and dynamics of how he disclosed to the sheriff’s investigators probably will never come to light, but I can tell you for those who were there it was very, very profound.
“Victim Number Two had never disclosed to anyone prior to being contacted by our sheriff’s investigators, what had happened to him. And it was very emotional, very profound, and even for seasoned investigators an experience that they will never ever forget.
“I hope that other victims not only of Baker but other clergy sex abuse victims will have that same sort of strength and courage to come forward and speak to law enforcement, because the district attorney’s office will be there, as I stated.
“We will go where the evidence takes us. If there’s evidence of crimes that we can charge and prosecute, we will charge them and we will prosecute them.
JOHN SPANO (LA TIMES): How much longer do you think the investigation will last ?
John, I’ve given up any hope of trying to quantify that. In the spring of 2002 I anticipated a couple of years. It’s been well over five and a half years now so I think we will simply follow the evidence. If new evidence turns up at my doorstep tomorrow, then we're going to follow it and off we go again.
SPANO: Any new evidence since the Baker case last year that led to these charges?
HODGMAN: Yes, we have been at work in ways that we can’t address publicly but yes, new evidence has been gathered.
More to Come. . .
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