Support group took 'kickbacks' from lawyers suing Catholic Church, suit claims

By Mark Mueller
NJ.com
January 25, 2017

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2017/01/support_group_took_kickbacks_from_lawyers_suing_ca.html

Barbara Blaine, left, founder of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), and David Clohessy, right, the group's former executive director, are seen here at a 2003 news conference in Chicago. Photo by M. Spencer Green

A lawsuit filed in Illinois claims the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, a group instrumental in exposing the clergy sexual abuse crises in the early 2000s, regularly accepts "kickbacks" from lawyers who sue the Catholic Church and puts its own financial interests above the emotional interests of victims.

The suit -- filed last week in Cook County, where the national headquarters is based -- contends a former employee, Gretchen Hammond, was harassed and ultimately fired after confronting the nonprofit group's founder and president, Barbara Blaine, its then-executive director, David Clohessy, and its outreach director, Barbara Dorris.

The group, known by the acronym SNAP, "does not focus on protecting or helping survivors -- it exploits them," Hammond contends in the suit. Hammond worked as a fundraiser for SNAP in its Chicago office from 2011 to 2013.

The suit does not allege wrongdoing in local chapters. SNAP, founded in 1988, has chapters in every state, in Canada and in Mexico.

In a statement and in telephone interviews, SNAP officials denied any impropriety, saying Hammond's claims are false.

"The allegations are not true," Blaine, the founder, said in a statement. "This will be proven in court. SNAP leaders are now, and always have been, devoted to following the SNAP mission: to help victims heal and to prevent further sexual abuse."

Clohessy, the longtime public face of the national organization, issuing statements and conducting interviews, called the allegations "preposterous and confusing."

"As best I can tell, this is the first we've heard from Gretchen in four years or so," he said.

Clohessy -- who has aggressively condemned Catholic leaders he views as ineffectual in rooting out abuse, and who has in turn been a frequent target of attacks by the church's most ardent defenders -- resigned from SNAP Dec. 31, a move he said had no connection to the suit.

"I'm 60 years old and battling high cholesterol and very high blood pressure, and it's time for me to do something different, something a little less stressful," he said.

Tax records show Clohessy had an annual salary of $86,000 before resigning. Blaine is paid the same amount, the records show.

At the heart of Hammond's claims are donations to SNAP from lawyers who sue the church on behalf of people who say they have been sexually abused by priests. Those lawsuits cost various dioceses around the country nearly $3 billion between 2004 and 2014, according to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

In her suit, Hammond said SNAP "routinely accepts financial kickbacks from attorneys in the form of 'donations.'"

"In exchange for the kickbacks, SNAP refers survivors as potential clients to attorneys, who then file lawsuits on behalf of the survivors against the Catholic Church," the suit states. "These cases often settle, to the financial benefit of the attorney and, at times, to the financial benefit of SNAP, which has received direct payments from survivors' settlements."

Federal tax forms filed by nonprofit agencies must disclose how much money in donations is taken in each year, but groups are not required to break down donations by amount or by donor. It is not illegal for attorneys to donate to organizations that refer clients.

In the suit, Hammond claims more than half of SNAP's annual donations routinely come from lawyers who regularly sue the church. In 2003, the suit said, 54 percent of donations came from plaintiff attorneys. In 2007, the figure amounted to more than 81 percent, the suit said.

Hammond, who claimed she had permission to access Clohessy's email account, said she had one email in which the former executive director urged an abuse survivor to pursue a claim against the Archdiocese of Milwaukee.

In another case in November 2012, Hammond said, she was accidentally copied on an email in which Clohessy allegedly told a prominent attorney he had a survivor interested in filing suit. In the same email, Hammond claims, Clohessy asked when SNAP could expect a donation.

In his telephone interview with NJ Advance Media, Clohessy responded: "I've written hundreds of thousands of emails, and I can't imagine I would say that, That's just not how we operate. Period."

He also said he never gave Hammond permission to access his email and that he never gave her his password.

"That's part of why this is confusing," Clohessy said. "I have many faults. Being an idiot isn't one of them. I would never give out my email password."

Speaking more broadly, Clohessy and other SNAP officials said there was nothing improper about attorneys giving substantial donations to the group.

"We accept donations from cops, from attorneys, from church employees, from church members," said Dorris, the national outreach director. "We're a charity. We accept donations from people who believe in our mission and who want us to help children."