MINNESOTA
Fox 9
By: Tom Lyden
POSTED:SEP 27 2016
(KMSP) – One thousand pages of documents released by the Ramsey County Attorney’s Office and St. Paul Police detail the criminal investigation into the Archdiocese of St. Paul-Minneapolis.
Those documents focus heavily on the conduct of former Archbishop John Nienstedt, who resigned 16 months ago.
Criminal charges in the case were dismissed in July as part of broad civil settlement with the Archdiocese.
The documents include a history of former priest Curtis Wehmeyer, who cruised bookstores and parks for gay sex before he was convicted of sexually assaulting two boys.
Concerns about Wehmeyer’s sexual compulsivity were raised before he even became a priest, when he was still in seminary. According to the documents, Nienstedt “was fond” of Wehmeyer, who even believed Nienstedt was “grooming” him for a sexual encounter.
In an August 2014 interview, Nienstedt dismissed the association.
“Three dinners in three years, it’s not something I wouldn’t have done with any other priest,” Nienstedt said.
The documents, which in some cases are heavily redacted, also include confidential memos that refer to an internal church investigation into the conduct of Nienstedt, carried out by an outside law firm, Greene-Espel.
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