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  Church Attorneys Stall Again, Still No Caffoe Files from St. John's; Will Roger Mahony Testify in Pedophile Priest Civil Case Hearings?

City of Angels [Los Angeles CA]
April 17, 2007

http://cityofangels3.blogspot.com/

It's getting nasty. No, it's getting OJ Simpsonian, as church attorneys throw obstructions in the face of plaintiffs and LA's 500 plus civil cases against the archdiocese battle toward justice. A motion to compel Roger Mahony to answer interrogatories is on calendar for a May 16 hearing.

Mahony's tactics seemed to leave the judge and others stunned today. After stalling since last summer, church attorneys now announce the only way they'll turn over St. John's Seminary files on Lynn Caffoe is with the judge's review in camera first.

Judge Haley Fromholz stared at Katherine Freberg and said, "I don't want to review anything I don't absolutely have to."

The Church Attorney held his fingers up in Freberg's face and said "The Seminary file is that thick."

JUDGE: Should they be produced to the court or for Mrs. Freberg?

CHURCH ATTORNEY: To the court for balance. Seminary and personnel files should be produced only in camera because of right to privacy. That's what happened in Clergy III

Judge Fromholz appeared to sigh.

JUDGE: I think we'll look further at it.

So after Freberg's relentless pursuit of St. John's Seminary files on Lynn Caffoe the issue is stalled, awaiting another order from Judge Fromholz who mumbled as the attorneys walked away, "It's not like it's Freberg versus tenant…"

The church attorney (whose name I didn't get but does it matter? They're interchangeable) continued: "The problem we're having is Freberg's firm is filing motions to compel for every document. They filed two more last week and unless they see a down side in filing motions to compel..."

. . .

City of Angels Lady went down to Room 106 after the hearing and did find one, not two, one Motion to Compel filed by Katherine Freberg last week, and it was not redundant about documents.



Motion To Compel Mahony to Respond to Questions

Answers so far have been "evasive or incomplete" writes Freberg.


Freberg wants Roger Mahony to answer questions in the Pepito & Uranga Case so we can find out whether it's true as Mahony has said that "the known incidents of abuse were few in number and generally perceived not to be indicative of a pattern."

BACKGROUND:

August 17 2006 the court ordered Mahony to respond to Interrogatories 1 through 8 and even allowed the archbishop to limit his answers to the period 1965 to 1982. The court overruled the archdiocese's objections and ordered archbishop to answer interrogatories as written.

December 15, 2006, Freberg writes, the archbishop served "unverified" responses --

On January 19, 2007, Freberg asked verification as the archbishop's responses had been unsworn.

She requested same in letters February 1, 6, 12, March 7, April 2 and finally submitted motion to compel on April 12 because "to date, none of these documents have been received."

Date of hearing on Motion to Compel Testimony of Roger Mahony: May 16, jury trial date for Pepito & Uranga, August 7, 2007.




BACKGROUND ON ST. JOHN'S SEMINARY:

More to come in future blog posts...

St. John's Seminary College produced pedophile priests and turned them out on the parishes of Southern California for 40 years. On its secluded grounds on the Ventura coast, the men groomed each other over generations, starting in the late 1950s. G. Patrick Ziemann arrived in 1963, the year after Mahony graduated. William J. Levada (St. John's Class of 1958) was Ziemann's "boss" as archbishop of San Francisco.

Over the decades St. John's Seminary went on to produce these documented pedophile priests:

Lynn Caffoe
George Neville Rucker
Carl M. Sutphin
John H. Dawson
Franklin Buckman
Clinton Vincent Hagenbach
Matthew H. Kelly


Katherine Freberg has been trying to get files on Caffoe since the judge ordered them turned over in August.

Any day now we should be seeing a Discovery Referee in the LA Clergy Cases.


More to come…

 
 

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