Crookston Diocese Speaks about Priest Charges

By Stephen J. Lee
In-Forum
March 24, 2012

http://www.inforum.com/event/article/id/355305/group/News/

Joseph Jeyapaul

Monsignor says settlement with victim not an admission of wrongdoing

CROOKSTON, Minn. – The Catholic Diocese here, in its first official comment since news of the arrest of the Rev. Joseph Jeyapaul in India last week on Minnesota sexual assault charges, says it hopes he is returned for trial.

CROOKSTON, Minn. – The Catholic Diocese here, in its first official comment since news of the arrest of the Rev. Joseph Jeyapaul in India last week on Minnesota sexual assault charges, says it hopes he is returned for trial.

"The only way for this to be resolved is for him to be here, so we would like a resolution to it," Monsignor David Baumgartner, who, as vicar general of the diocese, serves as the right-hand man to Bishop Michael Hoeppner, told the Grand Forks Herald this week.

Jeyapaul, 57, has been a fugitive for six years for criminal charges first filed in 2006 in state district court in Roseau. He is accused of sexually assaulting a parish member in Greenbush, Minn., when she was 14 and 15 in 2004 and 2005. In 2007, the charges were amended to include similar counts involving a second girl who was 16 during the same period.

As part of the extradition process requested by Roseau County attorneys, through the U.S. Department of Justice and Interpol, police found and arrested Jeyapaul on March 16 in his home country of India.

It could take months, or even years, to extradite him to Minnesota if he fights it, Roseau County Attorney Karen Foss said.

Megan Peterson, 22, says she was 14 when she went to Blessed Sacrament Church in Greenbush to pray and was violently sexually assaulted by Jeyapaul, who was a visiting priest in 2004.

Last year the Crookston diocese settled a lawsuit, in which Peterson charged negligence in the hiring and supervising Jeyapaul, by paying her $750,000.

The diocese did not admit any wrongdoing in the settlement, Baumgartner said. It did a thorough background check on him, and within days of first hearing of inappropriate – but not illegal – behavior by the priest involving young people other than Peterson, the diocese effectively fired him, Baumgartner said.

But in Minnesota, as in many states, employers can be seen as having "vicarious liability, meaning whatever he did he did in our name and we are responsible for it," he said. The lawsuit was "not commenting on whether Father Jeyapaul did something wrong. But Father Jeyapaul was not sued, we were sued."

The nature of church work in rural areas is that priests – as well as Protestant pastors – often are without any direct supervision by a bishop, who may be miles away, Baumgartner said. It's possible a jury might have decided the diocese was negligent in supervising Jeyapaul, he said.

"We just had to weigh ... Is it better to settle within our insurance coverage or risk all the assets of the diocese?" Baumgartner said. No money from the diocese or parishes went to pay the settlement with Peterson last year, he said.

As part of the settlement, the diocese has taken care to seek out anyone who might know of any other abuse or misconduct by Jeyapaul.

Outside of the two women included in the criminal charges, no one has come forward, Baumgartner said.

The diocese found Peterson's allegations plausible, he said.

"But there is a difference between saying an allegation is credible and saying we believe he sexually abused her," he said. "This is the simple truth: We don't know what happened.

"If Father Jeyapaul is actually brought here, that will be the gift of the trial, to have that decided."