BishopAccountability.org
 
 

New Jersey Dioceses Just Named 188 Priests Accused of Child Sex Abuse. Will More Priests Go to Jail?

By S.P. Sullivan
Star Ledger
February 14, 2019

https://www.nj.com/crime/2019/02/new-jersey-dioceses-just-named-188-priests-accused-of-child-sex-abuse-will-more-priests-go-to-jail.html

After decades of relative silence, New Jersey’s five Catholic dioceses on Wednesday identified 188 priests credibly accused of sexual abuse against children. The disclosures come amid an ongoing state grand jury investigation expected to identify pedophile clergy and reveal whether there were any efforts to cover up their abuse.

Among the priests identified, 110 are dead. More than 75 had been removed from ministry as a result of their behavior, including some of the deceased. Two were listed as “whereabouts unknown. The records date back to the 1940?s and it is not known how many clergy were ever charged criminally.

But even with the release of the list, legal experts say it is unlikely many be prosecuted even though the state attorney general in New Jersey has launched its own sweeping investigation into allegations of sexual abuse. If similar efforts in other states are any indication, the inquiry could more likely prompt a hard look at systemic failures to stop abuse than put large numbers of priests in prison.

Former law enforcement officials and advocates for sexual assault survivors say clergy abuse cases are among the most difficult to prosecute for several reasons.

It was not unusual decades ago for victims to decide not to report abuse because they were skeptical that there would be consequences. And when victims did come forward in decades past, their complaints were frequently not turned over to authorities by church officials. Also, the lack of witnesses or corroborating evidence complicates criminal convictions further.

Even in Pennsylvania, where Attorney General Josh Shapiro last year published an unprecedented report naming more than 300 priests accused of abusing more than 1,000 children, just three clerics have been criminally charged.

A spokesman for Shapiro, Joe Grace, declined to comment on pending criminal cases but noted the office had received more than 1,450 calls to its tip line, a number of which “are of interest to our investigators.”

The New Jersey grand jury inquiry, unusual in the Garden State for its broad scope, is being overseen by Attorney General Gurbir Grewal’s office, which launched the effort in September and modeled it after the Pennsylvania probe.

In a recent interview with NJ Advance Media, Grewal said the New Jersey investigation would likely lead to a report similar to Pennsylvania’s. He also noted the inquiry, which includes local prosecutors in all 21 counties, had already led to one arrest: Rev. Thomas P. Ganley, a Phillipsburg priest charged in January with abusing a child over a four-year period.

“Information that came to our hotline on a Monday led to an arrest that same week,” Grewal said. “We were able to do the investigation during the intervening period that allowed us to arrest Father Ganley for abuse done in the 90s.”

But, the attorney general cautioned, “there are going to be other cases, as we’ve seen in the Pennsylvania grand jury report, where (criminal charges) are not viable because of the statute of limitations.”

There is no criminal statute of limitations for sexual assault in New Jersey, but under state law some sexually abusive behavior falls under lesser offenses such as criminal sexual contact or lewdness, which generally come with five-year windows in which they can be prosecuted.

Elie Honig, the former top prosecutor at the state Division of Criminal Justice, said that time is the enemy of authorities seeking to convict priests accused of abuse.

“You have to worry about the statute of limitations, memory fades over time, and you’re going to have lost opportunities to gather evidence,” he said.

He added that a sweeping grand jury investigation that produces a public report – which is fairly common in other states but rare in New Jersey – can help in instances where criminal charges aren’t viable.

“Even if the cases aren’t prosecutable for evidentiary reasons, there’s still value in public accountability,” said Honig, who is now executive director of the Rutgers Institute for Secure Communities.

Advocates for sex assault survivors were cautiously optimistic about the dioceses’ decision to name priests who were removed over credible claims, noting that the church has resisted such transparency in the past.

Patricia Teffenhart, the executive director of the New Jersey Coalition Against Sexual Assault, said she was glad to see the church and state authorities finally reckoning with systemic abuse, which has been uncovered in communities around the country.

She noted that many of the priests named Wednesday were already dead. So, too, are many of their victims.

“They’ve already lived their whole lives without seeing any modicum of justice,” she said.

Teffenhart said prosecutors need to reassess how they handle rape cases, comparing the clergy issue to allegations brought by Katie Brennan, a member of Gov. Phil Murphy’s administration who went public with claims that another official raped her during the governor’s campaign.

Ultimately, the man she accused – Al Alvarez, who denied any wrongdoing – was never charged with a crime.

“The reality is this is not a crime that generally happens in the light of day,” Teffenhart said. “We need to shift our justice proceedings to fit what we’ve come to know about the dynamics of this crime.”

 

 

 

 

 




.

 
 

Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.