SYDNEY (AUSTRALIA)
Sydney Morning Herald
February 17, 2018
By Tim Elliott
Robert Richter is not the obvious choice to defend Catholic Cardinal George Pell against historical sex charges. But the celebrity silk’s reputation for skewering witnesses – and winning cases – has delivered him the most high-profile case in his long and storied career.
In October 2016, the Melbourne-based defence barrister Robert Richter packed a pair of sunglasses and his panama hat and boarded a plane to Rome. Autumn is especially magical in the Eternal City: the colours are out and the crowds are down. If you’re lucky, you might even be able to stroll through St. Peter’s Square without being trampled. But sightseeing wasn’t on Richter’s to-do list. Rather, he was there to see the man at the centre of the most important case of his career, Cardinal George Pell.
Now 76, Pell has been an influential figure in the Catholic Church for more than 30 years. After serving as Archbishop of Melbourne, and then of Sydney, where he earned a reputation for being bluntly effective, he was called to Rome in 2014 and made the Vatican’s money czar, charged with untangling its finances, elements of which date from the 17th century. The appointment, which made Pell the third most powerful man in the Catholic Church and a trusted adviser to Pope Francis, seemed to mark just the latest station in his remarkable rise.
All that came to an end, however, in early 2016, when reports surfaced, first in newspapers and then on the ABC, that a Victorian police taskforce was investigating him for historical sex offences. Pell rejected the claims, which his spokesman described as “calumnies”. At the same time, he retained Richter. And when, in October 2016, three Victorian detectives travelled to Rome to interview the cardinal, Richter made sure he was by his side.
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