New Jersey’s Attorney General Ramps Up Investigation and Issues Subpoenas to Church Officials

By Zach Hiner
SNAP
November 16, 2018

http://www.snapnetwork.org/nj_issues_subpoenas_nov18

The attorney general for New Jersey has ramped up their investigation into clergy sex abuse and has issued subpoenas to at least one of the state’s catholic dioceses. We applaud this move by Attorney General Gurbir Grewal.

The issuing of these subpoenas is a huge step forward for the investigation in New Jersey and one that will make a major difference in the effort to get to the bottom of the clergy sex abuse crisis. Subpoena power was a critical tool in Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro’s investigation into clergy sex abuse that revealed evidence of more than 1000 children abused by more than 300 priests. By following in the footsteps of AG Shapiro, it is clear that AG Grewal is taking this investigation seriously.

This move by AG Grewal could not come at a better time. At the end of the same week in which the Vatican prevented steps to hold bishops responsible for abuse cover-ups accountable, AG Grewal is using the power vested in him by the legal system to enforce accountability on his own. We hope that others attorneys general across the US will follow in AG Grewal’s footsteps, whether by ramping up their own investigations or taking steps to begin them in their own state.

We encourage anyone who may have seen, suspected, or suffered abuse in New Jersey to aid AG Grewal’s investigation by calling into his abuse hotline at 1-855-363-6548 and making a report of what happened to them.