SAN FRANCISCO (CA)
The Examiner
By Chris Roberts @Cbloggy
In a Roman Catholic Church routinely accused of sexual wrongdoing, the San Francisco archdiocese has a distinction: it has been dragged into scandal not by a priest, but by a lay person.
Here, the most-recent sex accusations at a church are centered around a self-styled real estate developer, who gained the trust of priests and fellow worshippers despite a checkered past that includes alleged financial improprieties and a litany of lawsuits.
AN ALLEGED PRIOR THEFT
Before Bill McLaughlin came to San Francisco to became chair of the shrine’s board of trustees, he left a trail of lawsuits and accusations behind him in Marin County, including allegedly stealing money from a former Tiburon mayor’s campaign fund, according to court records.
Therese Hennessy, who served on the Tiburon Town Council from 1995 in 2001, did not call police after she learned her campaign treasurer, McLaughlin, wrote 15 checks to himself from the campaign fund in 2000, she swore in a deposition Feb. 7.
She confronted him and demanded he return the money — and he did. But then Hennessy turned to McLaughlin’s friend and confidante at St. Hilary Catholic Parish, Father James Tarantino.
She says she told the priest that McLaughlin was untrustworthy and was involved in other schemes that defrauded Marin residents out of their money. She added that McLaughlin “should not be placed in a position of having access to church funds,” she said in the deposition.
When Tarantino came to The City to work as Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone’s chief deputy in 2010, he chose as his residence the empty and available rectory next to the National Shrine of St. Francis of Assisi. There, McLaughlin made a mark as its most-active lay volunteer.
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