By David Yonke
Toledo Blade
March 20, 2008
http://toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080320/NEWS02/803200358
The attorney for a woman suing Toledo priest Gerald Robinson after accusing him of satanic ritual abuse has filed a motion asking Judge Ruth Ann Franks to voluntarily step down from the case because of her Catholic upbringing.
Attorney Mark Davis, representing the Toledo woman who sued anonymously as Survivor Doe with her husband Spouse Doe, said in a motion filed Tuesday in Lucas County Common Pleas Court that Judge Franks "may not be able to separate her immutable Catholic upbringing from the claims asserted" and that "this judge's impartiality might reasonably be questioned."
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Survivor Doe's suit was given the go-ahead last week by the Ohio Supreme Court, which refused to hear an appeal by Robinson's attorney seeking to dismiss the case. A pretrial hearing is scheduled for March 27 before Judge Franks.
Robinson's attorney, John Donahue of Perrysburg, called Judge Franks "a very, very fair person. Even suggesting that she would somehow be biased or partial to one side or another in any case is absurd."
Mr. Davis said in an interview yesterday that Judge Franks recused herself from Robinson's criminal case in 2004 in which the priest was charged with the 1980 murder of Sister Margaret Ann Pahl. The priest was convicted in May, 2006, and is serving a 15-years-to-life term in a southern Ohio prison.
Judge Franks cited a potential conflict in the criminal case because she is married to a retired Toledo police technician who investigated the murder in 1980 and she was an assistant prosecutor when the nun was slain.
Survivor Doe, now in her mid 40s, claims she was repeatedly raped and tortured by Robinson and Toledoan Jerry Mazuchowski in satanic rituals starting in 1968.
She said her abusers wore nuns' habits and used fake names, and she did not know their true identities until she saw Robinson in the media after his April, 2004, arrest, and Mr. Mazuchowski when he appeared in an article in The Blade in 2005.
Her civil suit was filed in April, 2005.
Mr. Mazuchowski said yesterday he believes Judge Franks is "an impartial judge. It's news to me that she was a Catholic and I don't think religion enters into this case at all."
He added: "The devil's never busier than he is during Holy Week."
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