MILWAUKEE (WI)
National Catholic Reporter
Brian Roewe Marie Rohde | Aug. 8, 2013
MILWAUKEE A federal judge’s decision that creditors cannot access funds in a separate cemetery trust as part of the Milwaukee archdiocese’s bankruptcy proceedings could have a wide range of implications should it outlast a possible appeal regarding the judge’s familial ties to the cemeteries.
On Thursday, Bankruptcy Judge Susan V. Kelley ordered archdiocesan records related to any interest U.S. District Court Judge Rudolph T. Randa or some of his family members have in cemeteries, crypts, mausoleums or the trust to be turned over to lawyers for the claimants. Archdiocesan lawyers agreed to do so.
The order came in response to an emergency motion filed Aug. 2 by the creditors’ committee following Randa’s decision that $57 million moved to a cemetery trust in 2007 could not be accessed in the bankruptcy proceedings.
Describing the situation as “unusual and unique,” Kelley cautioned that the order should not be construed as a ruling on the “appropriateness or non-appropriateness of a recusal or non-recusal or finding that [Randa] has a financial interest.”
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