WASHINGTON
Yakima Herald-Republic
By Donald W. Meyers / Yakima Herald-Republic
dmeyers@yakimaherald.com
An expert on sex abuse within the Catholic Church testified Thursday that the Diocese of Yakima failed to properly supervise a deacon accused of raping a man when he was a teen in 1999.
“(The supervision) wasn’t there,” said psychotherapist Richard Sipe. “They didn’t know what was going on, and they didn’t require accountability.”
But an attorney representing the diocese challenged Sipe’s credibility, producing documents showing that then-Bishop Carlos Sevilla advised an Episcopal bishop in Mexico that former Deacon Aaron Ramirez had sexually abused a 17-year-old in Zillah.
“Your statement that Bishop Sevilla failed to provide information is not accurate,” attorney Ted Buck said in one of the trial’s more testy exchanges.
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