MINNESOTA
Minnesota Public Radio
Madeleine Baran St. Paul, Minn. Oct 27, 2014
Hundreds of pages of legal documents released Monday provide more evidence that Archbishop John Nienstedt gave false testimony about a Twin Cities priest who pleaded guilty in 1983 to sexually assaulting a child.
Nienstedt in April had claimed under oath that he first learned of the Rev. Gilbert Gustafson’s criminal conviction within the previous six months. The latest documents show the archbishop received yearly monitoring reports on Gustafson that mentioned the priest’s criminal conviction from 2009 to 2013.
The archdiocese’s attorney also told Nienstedt about the conviction in a 2008 memo. That year, the archdiocese allowed Gustafson to travel to Orlando, where the priest would be “in an area where there are often many children,” one archdiocesan official wrote, adding, “He prepares every time he is around kids but feels that the fascination is waning.”
Monday’s 812-page document release by St. Paul attorney Jeff Anderson offers the closest look yet at how Nienstedt handled the Gustafson case. Most of the documents from Nienstedt’s predecessors had already been made public through past lawsuits or news reports.
The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis turned over the documents to Anderson as part of a lawsuit filed by a man who said he was sexually abused by the Rev. Thomas Adamson in the 1970s. The lawsuit, which was settled earlier this month, accused the Twin Cities archdiocese and the Diocese of Winona of creating a public nuisance by keeping information on abusive priests secret.
The claim forced the archdiocese to turn over the files of dozens of priests accused of sexually assaulting children. Anderson released several files earlier this year and said he plans to release others in the next few weeks.
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