SANTA MARIA (CA)
Santa Maria Sun
October 3, 2018
By Kasey Bubnash
Several Catholic priests who worked at schools and churches throughout Santa Barbara County were named as accused sexual assailants in a report on clergy abuse that was released by a national law firm on Oct. 2.
The report, which spans 125 pages and lists more than 300 clerics, religious employees, and volunteers who have been accused of sexual misconduct within the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, was compiled by Jeff Anderson and Associates, a law firm specializing in cases of childhood sexual abuse. The firm has been behind many of the major sex abuse lawsuits brought forward against the Catholic Church, and the California-focused report was released as part a nuisance lawsuit the firm is pursuing against the California bishops.
“This is a problem everywhere,” Jeff Anderson, lead attorney for Jeff Anderson and Associates, said at a press conference in Los Angeles on Oct. 2. The conference was livestreamed online through the firm’s website.
“[The report] describes not only that there have been 309 predator priests, offending clerics, who worked and abused in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles,” Anderson said, “but it describes in each case a history, and it more importantly describes the pattern and practice [of cover-up] that has and is being deployed by the Catholic bishops in Los Angeles. Not only in the past, but as we speak.”
In the report, Anderson and Associates alleges that Catholic churches in California have long-adhered to the same “playbook for concealing the truth” that Catholic churches throughout the world have been accused of using in dozens of sex abuse cases. The tactics, according to the report, include failing to report sexual assault accusations to law enforcement, inadequate in-house investigations, and relocating accused priests to different states and countries to avoid prosecution and public concern.
That alleged pattern played out in Santa Maria in 2006, when Father Timothy Lane was accused of sexually assaulting an 18-year-old graduate of St. Joseph High School, where he had worked since 1999.
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