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  Archibishop Robert Carslon’s Role

Berger's Beat
March 14, 2011

http://bergersbeat.com/archibishop-robert-carslons-role/

Almost 30 years ago, our town’s Archbishop Robert Carlson played an inadvertent but significant role in the career of a lawyer who has since earned millions representing thousands of clergy sex abuse victims, including dozens in St. Louis. ?Today’s Milwaukee Journal Sentinel profiles Minnesota attorney Jeff Anderson and tells of his first pedophile priest case. In the early 1980s, John and Janet Riedle told then-Bishop Carlson of the St. Paul-Minneapolis archdiocese that their son had been sexually assaulted years earlier by Father Thomas Adamson, who was still in their parish. Carlson reportedly told them “there wasn’t much he could do about it.” Anderson then sued and the archdiocese eventually offered $1 million to settle but insisted on a “gag order.” Outraged by the secrecy requirement, Anderson instead went to court, winning a $3.5 million jury verdict and launching Anderson’s relentless crusade to expose the church hierarchy’s complicity in child sex crimes. A key figure in Anderson’s firm is Patrick Noaker, a St. Louis University law school grad who worked as a public defender here early in his career.

 
 

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