DETROIT (MI)
Deadline Detroit
July 18, 2019
By Michael Betzold
Bringing cases against priests based on decades-old incidents shows how determined Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel is to use her resources in the now years-long Catholic Church abuse scandal.
It must have been a shock to the six men arrested around the world May 24; most had been living quietly in other states for decades. But Nessel knew what they most likely didn’t: The clock on Michigan’s statute of limitations law stops running when the accused perpetrator leaves Michigan.
The arrests sent a clear signal to church leaders and to victims: she’s leaving no stone unturned.
In the case of Fr. Tim Crowley, the John Doe victim in Nessel’s complaint didn’t want the Washtenaw County prosecutor to bring charges on his behalf back in 2012, when evidence was already public, but he’s apparently changed his mind. Crowley was transported in a police van from retirement in Arizona to face Nessel’s complaint alleging eight counts of criminal sexual conduct at St. Thomas the Apostle Church in Ann Arbor. At 70, Crowley – who left the state a year after the incidents in question – faces a July 30 probable cause conference.
Neil Kalina was snatched up in California as part of the AG’s May 24 sweep and remains in the Macomb County jail. He faces charges that he invited a boy of 13 to overnight stays at his rectory at St. Kieran in Utica in 1983 and 1984, gave him alcohol, cocaine, and marijuana – and sexually assaulted him.
“I’ve waited for this day for 18 years,” said the wife of the alleged victim, sitting in Judge Thomas Shepherd’s courtroom in Shelby Township July 2 for a scheduled probable cause conference for Kalina.
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