KANSAS CITY (MO)
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests
Posted by David Clohessy on October 01, 2012
A lawyer for a suspended Kansas City priest facing six child sex abuse lawsuits is asking a judge to sanction a support group for refusing to turn over records about two notorious child molesting clerics.
Late last week, Brian Madden, who represents Fr. Michael Tierney, filed a motion with Judge Ann Mesle to hold SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, in contempt of court. SNAP is withholding from Catholic about two suspended Kansas City priests – Fr. Thomas Reardon and Msgr. Thomas O’Brien.
The group calls Reardon and O’Brien “Missouri’s most dangerous child molesting clerics.” Each faces or has faced dozens of child sex abuse and cover up lawsuits, most of which have been settled.
“Both Reardon and O’Brien still live in Kansas City (and have) often worked in concert, giving drugs and liquor and porn and ‘massages’ to the same children, molesting them, and rationalizing one another’s crimes to these scared and confused youngsters who’d been taught since birth to respect, revere, trust and obey Catholic priests,” SNAP contends. The organization also maintains that “basic psychology and common sense strongly suggest that both Reardon and O’Brien remain dangerous.”
In a letter sent last week to Judge Mesle, SNAP Director David Clohessy said “At this point, I just cannot, in good conscience, turn over to defense lawyers – either for Bishop Finn’s diocese or for these two men – our records about them. It sickens me to think about this possibility.
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