Police say no plans to look into 2002 investigation into bishop, despite criticism from victim’s family

CASPER (WY)
Casper Star-Tribune

Nov. 23, 2019

By Seth Klamann

Cheyenne police say they have no plans to reexamine that year’s most high-profile sexual abuse investigation. In April 2002, recently retired Wyoming Bishop Joseph Hart was accused of sexually abusing a teenage boy in Cheyenne in the 1970s. The Cheyenne police investigation that followed lasted two months before the allegation was declared unfounded because of a lack of victim cooperation.

Nor is there interest by either of the two men who followed Hart as bishops of Wyoming to look backwards. David Ricken, now a bishop in Wisconsin, and Paul Etienne, now the archbishop in Seattle, both said they couldn’t investigate Hart during their respective reigns atop Wyoming’s Catholic church. The victim wouldn’t cooperate, they said. Neither answered when asked by email if they regretted how they handled the matter. Throughout both of the men’s tenures, Hart’s alleged victims were coming forward in Kansas City, all alleging abuse. The church settled lawsuits with 10 of them.

A spokesman for the Denver archdiocese, which oversees Wyoming, declined to comment when asked if the church would look into why nothing was done about Hart for so long.

Over the past two years, the investigation has been reignited. The unfounded claim has turned into the basis for a Vatican trial and a criminal case in Wyoming that now awaits a decision by prosecutors that could prove to be historic. The victim who wouldn’t cooperate has now spoken with civil and church authorities. His account has been deemed substantiated by the church.

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