BAKERSFIELD (CA)
KGET
August 6, 2020
By Jason Kotowski
A Superior Court judge on Thursday granted a change of venue motion filed by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Fresno, which is being sued for defamation by Monsignor Craig Harrison.
The case will be heard in Fresno County Superior Court. A date for the next hearing had not been scheduled.
“Of course we opposed (the motion) because we have other cases going here with similar issues, but it doesn’t come as a surprise,” Kyle J. Humphrey, one of Harrison’s attorneys, said afterward.
Humphrey said the case could have been held in Kern if the diocese hadn’t objected, but the law allows a change of venue for the case to be heard where the diocese is situated.
The lawsuit is based on what Harrison said were defamatory statements made by then-Diocese spokeswoman Teresa Dominguez on behalf of the Diocese in a May 2019 article on KQED. Dominguez said that she believed a man who had first reported sexual abuse allegations against Harrison decades ago.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.