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By Kay Ebeling
“They were going to try every trick in the book and create new books for new tricks. Their strategy was to prevent the sordid history from coming out.”
--Plaintiff Attorney Tony DeMarco
I caught Tony DeMarco with time to talk last Friday. Here's the interview where he talks about upcoming jury trials re Salesians cases and some of his thoughts on batlling "Goliath" to expose decades of sex crimes in the Catholic Church.
IS THERE SOME KIND OF GOLDEN PARAGRAPH THAT DESCRIBES THE ENTIRE SETTLEMENT?
DEMARCO: Not yet. It’s close. The documentation is very, very close.
IS THERE A STATEMENT IN THE SETTLEMENT THAT STATES RELEASE OF PERSONNEL FILES AND OTHER DOCUMENTS IS PART OF THE SETTLEMENT --
DEMARCO: It will be in the settlement agreement, yes. It’s being drafted.
DO YOU THINK THE CHURCH WILL TRY TO GET OUT OF RELEASING FILES AND OTHER DOCUMENTS?
DEMARCO: They're creative. They don’t like seeing the stuff come out, so they'll try to find a way, but we've got a process put in place and we've got judges who see the need for making this information known to the public.
THESE CASES MUST HAVE WREAKED HAVOC WITH YOUR HOME LIFE.
DEMARCO: This is something I put my heart and soul into. I think it -- I hope it showed. I think the clients appreciated it and saw it. You know, it wasn’t hard going to sleep at night knowing whether or not I was on the side of right or wrong.
But with that comes a great responsibility and that weighed real heavy for the last five years. So it’s nice to see this coming to a conclusion in some respects.
WERE YOU SHOCKED AT THE WAY THE CHURCH FOUGHT BACK?
No, I mean -- it -- I came to expect it. That they were going to try every trick in the book and create new books for new tricks. I mean they just -- they fight everything. You know, and early on I was shocked and then as time went on you just try to figure a way to get what you need, even with all the things that they're doing.
DO YOU THINK THEY EVER MADE A REALLY LEGITIMATE LEGAL ARGUMENT?
There were some legal arguments along the way that were closer than others but I think their overall strategy was to prevent as much of the information about the sordid history from coming out as they possibly could.
YOU KNOW I’M GOING TO USE THIS?
It’s a fair statement. That was one of their major aims, to keep this away from the public view.
AND HOW DID THEY DO THAT?
They do that by preventing you from getting the information, either in depositions or getting documents. Or by making you work exceptionally hard for every little shred of information you get.
I mean, there were very professional people on the other side too, so I don't mean to say across the board everyone on the other side tried to do things that were underhanded, I don't think that at all.
But as an over arching aim, Kay, they wanted to prevent the truth of depravity in the institution from coming into the public view. That was an over arching aim of their legal strategy.
They would be very creative about thinking up new arguments about privileges that didn't exist and take us years to get past because it takes a while to work things through the legal system, and that worked, that worked in their favor.
And at the very same time they were trying to go after as much personal information from each and every plaintiff and plaintiff family member as they possibly could. They were trying to drain people and, you know, to some people it probably happened. But I think people stayed pretty resolute through this.
THEY WERE TRYING TO DRAIN THE PLAINTIFFS?
And the plaintiffs’ lawyers. I mean there aren’t too many plaintiffs’ law firms out that there that could have afforded to go through five years’ worth of daily bruising litigation without seeing much come in in the interim. I mean that's a really tough thing to do, I mean the folks at the large firms, I mean, here at KBL, at Kathy’s office, they took huge-huge risks, huge risks. And they took that, you know, fully knowing what the risk was, I mean they -- it was an ever present danger these firms could be bankrupted because of taking this litigation on. I don't think people fully appreciate that, but day in and day out salaries are getting paid to fight and fight and fight.
I don't think people realize how much of a David and Goliath it really was. You have one of the largest most powerful richest institutions in the world, that we spent five years trying to go after.
We dug deeper, and when the documents start coming out from what we were able to find, people will appreciate it more.
And I think we dug deeper in this litigation than anyone ever has in any litigation against the church. We deposed more people, we got more documents.
IS THAT BECAUSE OF CALIFORNIA’S DISCOVERY LAWS?
I think a large measure of it was because of the tenacity of the people going after it. But yeah that we have decent discovery laws in this state and the statute of limitations being passed allowing people to file was a huge part of it. But --
It took a lot of work.
I mean the other side, even with discovery law the way it is, they weren’t going to willingly give stuff up. We had to go fight and fight, file motion after, go through battle after battle. And oftentimes you couldn't even go that way. We had to go and find witnesses themselves, track them down independently, get witness statements. It was a lot of work, a lot of money.
And we're still doing it with the Salesians. I mean we've got a November 5th trial there and if it goes, I’m very much looking forward to it.
YOU THINK THIS CASE WILL GO ALL THE WAY TO A JURY?
DEMARCO: It might. It really might. I think it stands as good a chance as any case at all ever did. Because of the position these guys are taking. Now it could change, you know how these worked but they are the most recalcitrant. The Salesians have been the most recalcitrant religious order in California.
In Northern California -- Joey Piscitelli’s case and then there was another one that John Manly tried back just before that, the last two, Salesians hung for a trial. They just wanted to try the last of their cases. They ended up having to pay in both those cases.
(UPDATE: The Salesians haven’t paid Joey yet. A jury awarded Piscitelli $300,000 July 2006, the Salesians appealed, then filed for a year’s extension last July. See interview with Joey Piscitelli here at city of angels blog soon.)
WHAT OTHER TRIALS ARE DEFINITELY SET IN NEXT WEEKS?
At the moment probably the only really definite trial is the November 5th trial. There’s another one set for trial in January involving the Salesians again and Father Dominguez. And that's one of Kathy Freberg’s cases. January. There’s also still a trial date on calendar for the Claretians cases, involving Father Lovell. Kathy’s office can give you more details on that one.
DID YOU EVER GET TO DEPO MONSIGNOR LIRETTE?
Did we do a follow-up after our motion, no. I’m understanding he passed away.
THANK YOU
WATCH HERE FOR MORE INTERVIEWS WITH KEY PERSONS
More to Come. . .
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