STOCKTON (CA)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests
Posted by Barbara Dorris on April 13, 2012
For the second time in his career, Los Angeles’ Cardinal Roger Mahony will testify in open court in a child sex abuse and cover up case in Stockton, a diocese he headed for years before coming to LA.
The case centers around the diocese’s handling of Fr. Michael Kelly, a priest who just last week was found civilly liable by a 12-person jury of abusing a child in the mid-1980s. Despite the fact that allegations of abuse at the hands of Fr. Kelly have been known to the diocese for years, Fr. Kelly was only removed from ministry as of Friday (he had been removed from ministry once before in 2007, but the diocese reinstated him in 2008.
In 1998, Mahony testified in a civil trial involving notorious predator priest Oliver O’Grady who spent time in prison and was extradited. At the end of those proceeding, one juror pointedly told reporters that Mahony was “utterly unbelievable” and another juror went so far as to say “I didn’t believe Mahony . . . I think it is pretty obvious that none of us did.”
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