Police seized 57 items from Saginaw Diocese during raid, including ‘victim list’

By Cole Waterman
Saginaw News
June 3, 2019

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Pages of an affidavit and search warrant for three properties of the Catholic Diocese of Saginaw.

When police executed search warrants at three Catholic Diocese of Saginaw properties last year during an investigation into claims of sexual abuse of minors, documents show they seized nearly 60 items of evidence.

Among them, located in the bottom drawer of a filing cabinet at diocese headquarters, was a file labeled “victim list.”

That information is contained in search warrant paperwork detailing what police seized during the March 2018 raid. The paperwork was recently unsealed and copies were obtained by MLive and The Saginaw News.

The list of confiscated property shows investigators took 57 items during the search of three locations - former Bishop Joseph R. Cistone’s home at 32 E. Corral Drive in Saginaw Township, the Saginaw Diocese offices at 5800 Weiss St. in Saginaw Township and the rectory at Cathedral of Mary of the Assumption at 615 Hoyt St. in Saginaw.

The items included computers, flash drives, expense accounts, internal memos and boxes containing the personnel files of now-convicted Rev. Robert J. DeLand Jr., three other priests and one deacon. The police paperwork does not explain the contents of the “victim list” file seized by investigators.

The majority of evidence police seized has been turned over to the Michigan Attorney General’s Office, which is currently investigating all seven Catholic dioceses in the state on sex-abuse claims dating to the 1950s.

As part of that investigation, law enforcement in October executed search warrants on each diocese in Saginaw, Detroit, Marquette, Lansing, Kalamazoo, Gaylord, and Grand Rapids.

Attorney General Dana Nessel said she anticipated the state’s investigation would take “in the neighborhood of two years.”

On Friday, May 24, Nessel announced her office was charging five priests with a combined 21 counts of criminal sexual conduct. None of them were assigned to the Saginaw Diocese. Four of the men were arrested at various places throughout the country while the fifth awaits extradition from India.

Searches and suspensions

At the time of the 2018 raid, police provided the Saginaw Diocese with copies of the search warrants and a tabulation of items seized, but not the affidavit giving details to support the search warrant. That document by Detective Scott Jackson outlines the probable cause for the searches and outlines allegations against the five clergymen.

Of the five, three have been suspended by the diocese — DeLand, the Rev. Ronald J. Dombrowski and, most recently, the Rev. Dennis Kucharczyk. The last was suspended on May 19 after the diocese said it received information from law enforcement regarding an allegation of misconduct involving a minor that occurred “many years ago.”

Dombrowski and Kucharczyk have not been criminally charged and the other two have not been criminally charged or named by the diocese.

Saginaw County Chief Assistant Prosecutor Mark J. Gaertner said although DeLand’s case was prosecuted, there was not sufficient evidence to charge the other four named in the search warrant affidavit.

Erin Looby Carlson, director of communications for the Catholic Diocese of Saginaw, said the church learned about the abuse allegations against Kucharczyk after the affidavit was unsealed.

“In March 2018, law enforcement provided the diocese only with names, not specific information or allegations,” she said. “The affidavit, which contained the details behind the search warrant, was not made available to the diocese. The affidavit was sealed by the court and the diocese attempted repeatedly over the next 15 months to have access to the affidavit.”

Gaertner said the court order prevented any further sharing of information at that time.

“Once it’s sealed, it’s under court order that nothing is to be revealed,” Gaertner said. “I can’t violate a court order.”

Once the diocese learned the details of Kucharczyk’s alleged misconduct, it removed him from ministry and notified the Michigan Attorney General’s Office, Looby Carlson said.

Elsewhere in the search warrant affidavit, Jackson wrote that on March 21, a priest who had previously worked in Saginaw told detectives a nun had been assigned by Bishop Cistone to the secure second floor of the Mary of the Assumption rectory and was “going through files.” This concerned detectives “due to the past documented history of Bishop Joseph Cistone either covering up allegations of abuse and/or being involved in and/or the party to the destruction of evidence of crimes.”

Police arrested DeLand on sexual abuse charges on Feb. 25, 2018. The diocese suspended DeLand and on March 17, 2018, issued a press release on its website stating it was suspending Dombrowski due to an allegation of sexual abuse of a minor.

The diocese, with the help of private investigator, also conducted an internal investigation in 2009 regarding the deacon and the fourth priest named in the search warrant affidavit. The affidavit’s account differs from the diocese’s findings, Looby Carlson said.

The diocese in 2009 informed the deacon it would not be ordaining him as a priest. He then left America to return to his native country, where he does serve as priest, Looby Carlson said.

The Saginaw County Prosecutor’s Office handled the prosecution of DeLand, 72, who was charged with several counts related to the alleged abuse of two teens and one man. A jury on March 21 acquitted DeLand on some of the charges, but he later pleaded no contest to three charges. On April 25, Saginaw County Circuit Judge Darnell Jackson sentenced DeLand to two to 15 years in prison.

DeLand is currently incarcerated the Charles Egeler Reception and Guidance Center in Jackson.