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By City Of Angels Lady
The pace is accelerating and content changing as pretrial hearings get within one month of the first Jury Trial in civil cases against the LA Archdiocese. Roger Mahony says on his website he “prays daily for a generous payout from the insurance companies" but he's ready to sell some real estate to settle local claims. I fantasize they’d sell several of their crumbling churches and start a foundation for ALL victims of priest rape walking around the world seeking the rebuilding of their souls, whether they're in California or Illinois or Boston, with the Vatican chipping in a couple gold columns from its vestibules. But I’m a dreamer.
Jury trials are now on calendar for survivors of two currently incarcerated priests: Michael Edwin Wempe’s jury civil trial will be October 9, 2007; and Michael Stephen Baker’s, January 7, 2008. (See the calendar of 15 jury trials so far for 2007-2008 at left.) Both men were serving time when the 2003 Supreme Court decision set them free, and both men were re-arrested when new crimes came out that fit the statute of limitations. I wonder if they'll walk into the courtroom hand in hand in chains. Will they even be at their civil trials? I don't know.
A schedule of hearings for the coming weeks is copy and pasted below. Two motions by defendant the church to make plaintiffs produce medical records were to be heard Tuesday May 22 but were removed “per moving party.”
I think most significant coming up: “MOTION - COMPEL FURTHER RESPONSES (BY DEFENDANT DOE 1 TO STANDARDIZED INTERROGATORIES 1-8; cont from 05-16-07; RE: BC307225;)” per the LA Superior Court website Case Summary section.
(Just type in JCCP4286 to keep track of changes in the calendar.)
Continued from May 16th means this might be the hearings concerning Roger Mahony himself. I will have to go document diving early next week to double check. But Monday I get started with my new therapy. Thanks to everyone who wrote me with concern. I’m really doing great.
If not May 30th I'm sure there'll be more attempts to get Mahony to talk under oath. Hope he testifies in a jury trial. Going to bring a sketchbook. . . . --------
PERSONAL NOTE:
Last Thursday afternoon I took a walk up Sunset Boulevard and stood in front of Blessed Sacrament Church.
This LA institution in the middle of Hollywood is part of my story, because in the 1980s in one of my many attempts to come back to the church I was singing in the choir there. I also felt compelled to schedule a long private personal Confession with one of the priests there. I know he and I were in a room together for at least a half hour, maybe longer, and I told him a long story, but I can’t remember a thing I said. It’s like a blackout. So I’ve been thinking about trying to contact that priest just to find out what the heck I said to him. I have a feeling he’d remember. I know he left the church a few weeks after that, transferred. . . .
So I walked all the way around Blessed Sacrament Church Thursday and then came home to find out the cases against Mark Falvey of the same Blessed Sacrament Church were settled that afternoon. According to the LA Times: “Jesuits Agree to Sex Case Payout, Nine People Who Say They Were Molested by Father Mark Falvey between 1959 and 1975 Will Divide $16 Million from the Order - By John Spano”
Click http://www.bishop-accountability.org/news2007/05_06/2007_05_18_Spano_JesuitsAgree.htm to read the entire story.
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It’s so weird. I’d just been standing there looking at the church and then walked all the way around it that afternoon.
You see the building right next door is Crossroads Of The World, a particularly garish Sunset Boulevard landmark.
You can tell from the nearby and surrounding architecture plus the fact that Crossroads sits right smack in the center of the church and parochial school parking lot -- it’s obvious the church at some time back in the 1930s or so had something to do with the development of this particularly atrocious building (it sort of looks like a tugboat with flags on it and the second floor offices look like they're on a yacht).
I’m particularly interested in this piece of real estate because in 1968 and 1969 it housed Pretty Girl International Modeling Agency, a specialty agency that casted the up and coming mainstream porn movies and magazines that were just coming out. They even advertised in Daily Variety and The Hollywood Reporter classified sections: “Casting, beautiful men and women willing to do total nudity, split beaver, simulated sex.” Everything was simulated at that point -- it was in 1968-1969 that the industry standard segued from simulated sex to real sex and then blossomed into the thriving “sex industry” we have today.
The porn revolution in Hollywood was born right there at Crossroads Of The World office development -- a proud next door neighbor sharing a parking lot with Blessed Sacrament Church. It’s interesting that some of the sex crimes that were committed by Mark Falvey took place apparently during that time that Pretty Girl International agency was processing newly arrived beautiful men and women to Hollywood into the “legal and socially accepted” porn movie and magazine industry that was developing.
Right there in that building that the church might even have still owned, I could have been looking out the window from what is supposed to look like Captain’s Quarters but was really the casting agent’s office, looking out the window right at Blessed Sacrament church. From that angle the church belfry stands right alongside the "ship's flagstaff" so they are like twin towers over Sunset Boulevard. I got some of my first porn modeling assignments there myself.
There's even a statue there, in the middle of Crossroads of the World, that's plainly from the church's missionary era, may have even been a fountain. Crossroads of the World, location of the birth of the porn industry in 1969, was right there on the lot with the rest of Blessed Sacrament buildings.
Hmm. . . .
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SCHEDULE OF UPCOMING EVENTS:
Here is the schedule of hearings leading up to the first Jury Trial June 11, 2007 copy and pasted from the LA Superior Court website (their typos, not mine):
05/23/2007 at 08:31 am in department 20 at 111 North Hill Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012 Motion to Amend (THE COMPLAINT(PAPERS FILED ON 5/01)RE: BC307225)
05/23/2007 at 08:31 am in department 20 at 111 North Hill Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012 Motion to Amend (THE COMPLAINT(PAPERS FILED ON 5/01)RE: BC307410)
05/30/2007 at 08:31 am in department 20 at 111 North Hill Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012 MOTION - COMPEL FURTHER RESPONSES (BY DEFENDAN DOE 1 TO STANDARDIZED INTERROGATORIES 1-8;cont from 05-16-07;RE: BC307225;)
05/30/2007 at 08:31 am in department 20 at 111 North Hill Street, Los Angeles, CA Hearing on Demurrer (AND MOTION TO STRIKE(PAPERS FILED ON 3/07)**CONT FROM 4/25**RE: BC291179)
05/30/2007 at 08:31 am in department 20 at 111 North Hill Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012 Motion to Quash (AND DISMISS(PAPERS FILED ON 3/07)**CONT FROM 4/17**RE: YC048257)
05/30/2007 at 08:31 am in department 20 at 111 North Hill Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012 Motion for Sanctions (PAPERS FILED ON 4/27)RE: BC308665)
05/30/2007 at 08:31 am in department 20 at 111 North Hill Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012 Hearing on Demurrer (AND MOTION TO QUASH AND DISMISS(PAPERS FILED ON 3/07)**CONT FROM 4/24**RE: BC308556)
05/30/2007 at 08:31 am in department 20 at 111 North Hill Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012 Motion Pro Hac Vice **plaintiff name deleted** (PAPERS FILED ON 5/03)RE: BC307685)
05/30/2007 at 08:31 am in department 20 at 111 North Hill Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012 Motion Pro Hac Vice (**plaintiff name deleted** (PAPERS FILED ON 5/03)RE: BC308017)
05/31/2007 at 08:30 am in department 20 at 111 North Hill Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012 Final Status Conference (KREUTZER CASES)
06/05/2007 at 08:31 am in department 20 at 111 North Hill Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012 Motion to Amend (**plaintiff name deleted**’S COMPLAINT;(PAPERS FILED ON 05-16-07)RE: BC308065)
06/05/2007 at 08:31 am in department 20 at 111 North Hill Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012 Motion to Compel (PLAINTIFFS TO RELEASE OF RECORDSJOINDER BY DEFT DOE 1 ON BC308364AND BC307232(PAPERS FILED ON 5/10))
06/06/2007 at 08:31 am in department 20 at 111 North Hill Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012 Motion for Summary Judgment ((7X)(PAPERS FILED 3/26)RE: BC286703, BC304657, BC305515,BC307934, BC307949, BC308294 ANDBC308555)
06/07/2007 at 10:30 am in department 322 at 600 South Commonwealth Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90005 Further Proceedings (-Further Briefing re Privacy Rights-)
06/11/2007 at 09:30 am in department 20 at 111 North Hill Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012 Jury Trial (KREUTZER CASES)
*Pro Hac Vice re those May 30 hearings: has to do with bringing in an attorney from out of state.
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From bishop accountability dot org http://bishopaccountability.org re Baker whose jury trial is January 7 2008:
Accused of abuse. 2 brothers settled in 2000 for $1.3M. Criminal charges dropped due to Supreme Court ruling. LA archdiocese counts 23 accusers. Arrested again 1/06. Laicized 12/5/2000 per LA Times Database. Included in Dec. 2006 $60 mil settlement re22 priests which covers all of the cases involving molestations that occurred since Mahony was named head of the diocese in 1985. Facing additional criminal charges 12/06 re 2nd victim
From Bishop Accountability dot org re Wempe whose jury trial is October 9, 2007:
Accused of abuse of 13 from 1972-1995 per archdiocesan report. Sued several times from 2002 to 2003. Original criminal charges dropped due to Supreme Court ruling.Re-arrested 2003. Convicted 1 count 2006. Sentenced to 3 yrs prison in May, 2006. Included in 12/06 $60 mil settlement re 22 priests which covers all of the cases involving molestations that occurred since Mahony was named head of the diocese in 1985.
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More to come. . .
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