NEW MEXICO/ARIZONA
Gallup Independent

Published in the Gallup Independent, Gallup, N.M., Sept. 8, 2012

‘Route 66’ clergy abuse

By Elizabeth Hardin-Burrola
Independent correspondent

FLAGSTAFF — An Arizona judge has ruled against the Diocese of Gallup on two important issues in the “Route 66” priest sex abuse lawsuit the diocese is fighting in a Flagstaff courtroom.

On Aug. 31, Coconino County Superior Court Judge Mark R. Moran denied two requests by attorneys for the Gallup Diocese that would have severely limited the plaintiff’s attorney from obtaining discovery information about sexual abuse that has occurred in the diocese, limited witnesses the plaintiff’s attorney could interview in depositions, and limited the scope of those deposition interviews.

The lawsuit was filed two years ago by Phoenix attorney Robert E. Pastor on behalf of a man in his early 70s who claims he was sexually abused as a child when he served as…