BishopAccountability.org
 
  Report Clears Hubbard

Albany Times Union [Albany NY]
June 24, 2004

A former federal prosecutor who spent four months investigating allegations of sexual misconduct against Bishop Howard Hubbard said there was no evidence to substantiate the allegations against the bishop.

Mary Jo White announced her findings at a news conference at Albany Law School. She said a copy of the report has been given to the Sexual Misconduct Review Board of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Albany.

The 11-member panel hired White in late February to look into allegations raised on Feb. 4 by Andrew Zalay, of California, who released his brother's 1978 suicide notes, one of which claimed a homosexual affair with a bishop named Howard.

Thomas Zalay died after setting himself ablaze in his parents' Myrtle Avenue home.

Two days later, 40-year-old Anthony Bonneau of Schenectady said at another news conference arranged by attorney John Aretakis that Hubbard paid him for sex while he was a teenage runaway living in Washington Park in the 1970s.

White was also retained to look at the circumstances surrounding the Feb. 15 suicide of the Rev. John Minkler of Watervliet after a 1995 letter he allegedly sent to then-New York Archbishop John O'Connor accused Hubbard of homosexual behavior and theological transgressions.

 
 

Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.