BUFFALO (NY)
Buffalo News [Buffalo NY]
October 27, 2023
By Jay Tokasz
The Buffalo Diocese has asked a state court to stop the public release of documents subpoenaed by the State Attorney General’s Office during its investigation into the diocese’s handling of childhood sex abuse allegations against clergy.
The diocese – despite repeated promises of greater transparency in its efforts to overcome a major sex abuse scandal – argued in court papers Friday that a release of the files to The Buffalo News under the state’s Freedom of Information Law would undermine confidentiality in its Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings and threaten ongoing efforts to reach a mediated settlement with approximately 850 sex abuse claimants.
The diocese’s lawyers filed an Article 78 petition in New York County State Supreme Court to block The News from obtaining 25,000 pages of documents about how church leaders responded to and concealed abuse allegations.
The News plans to submit a brief to the court arguing that the state’s Freedom of Information Law requires disclosure of the information.
“The diocese might be held in higher regard today had it been more transparent in handling this scandal. It’s tragic to see it doubling down on the same secretive, stonewalling conduct that has alienated the faithful and destroyed its credibility,” said attorney Joseph M. Finnerty, who will represent The News.
The News sought the records to better understand how the Catholic Church, one of Western New York’s largest and most powerful institutions, kept allegations of sexual abuse against more than 200 accused priests under wraps for years, and, in many cases, decades.
In 2020, the AG’s Office sued the Buffalo Diocese, alleging that church leaders shielded priests accused of abuse from public scrutiny and failed to properly monitor them.
The lawsuit included a 218-page report with 25 case studies of the diocese’s handling of accused priests, based on internal diocese records.
As an example, the diocese’s own files showed that church leaders spent at least 35 years covering up the Rev. Donald W. Becker’s alleged sexual crimes against children.
The files contained in the AG’s report showed that senior diocese officials knew as far back as 1983 that Becker likely molested boys. The files included a mother’s note to church officials complaining that the priest had sodomized her son in 1974 or 1975. Church files showed that Becker stayed in parishes, despite multiple additional abuse complaints, until 2002, when he was allowed to take a sudden medical leave.
However, most of the subpoenaed documents were not included in the report.
The AG’s Office in 2022 completed its investigation and settled the lawsuit. The settlement included enhanced measures to protect against future sex abuse within the diocese, such as a monitoring program for priests accused of child molestation.
The News waited to make its records request until the attorney general’s investigation was finished to avoid a potential denial of its request.
The AG’s Office gave the diocese an opportunity to explain why its documents should be exempted from disclosure under the state Public Officer’s Law.
Records Access Officer Abisola Fatade wrote to Geremia on July 14 and gave him 10 business days to provide a written statement.
Another diocese attorney, Lawlor F. Quinlan, responded on Aug. 25 – 29 days later – primarily arguing that an exemption from disclosure was required because releasing the records would expose trade secrets and cause substantial injury to the diocese’s “competitive position.”
Fatade agreed in September to release the documents over the diocese’s objections. The diocese appealed Fatade’s decision, and Records Appeals Officer Kathryn Sheingold on Oct. 12 rejected the appeal.
In her letter to Quinlan, Sheingold said the diocese didn’t demonstrate that it was engaged in marketplace competition of the sort that was contemplated by a section of the state’s Public Officers’ Law that allows for certain exemptions from disclosure.
“That is, the Diocese does not engage in business for which it faces competition from members of the same business that would gain a potential windfall from not having to create their own comparable business model if they had access to the responsive records,” Sheingold wrote.
The diocese had 15 days from the receipt of Sheingold’s decision to ask the court to intervene. A hearing on the diocese’s Article 78 petition is required within 45 days of the filing.
While publicly expressing a desire to be more transparent about its handling of sexual abuse allegations, the diocese has spent tens of thousands of dollars quietly fighting the release of internal files that could shed light on how chancery officials dealt with abuse complaints.
Attorneys from two firms billed nearly $25,000 for their work in September to prevent the document disclosures, according to federal court papers in the diocese’s ongoing Chapter 11 bankruptcy case. One of the firms, Jones Days, also billed approximately $15,000 in December and January for work on FOIL and document disclosure matters in the wake of the News’ FOIL request on Dec. 5, 2022.
In its petition, the diocese argued that two exemptions in the state’s Freedom of Information Law allow for 25,000 pages of “confidential, internal, and highly sensitive documents” submitted to the Attorney General’s Office under subpoena to remain private and not be disclosed to the public.
Diocese lawyers said the information was compiled for law enforcement purposes and if disclosed would interfere with a judicial proceeding. They also argued disclosure would cause substantial injury to the diocese’s “competitive position” – the same argument made to the Attorney General’s Office’s FOIL officers.
“The OAG’s determination to engage in wholesale, public disclosure of strictly confidential materials relating to sensitive claims of abuse – information that under the agreed-upon protocols is available solely to a handful of key individuals who are actively involved in attempting to negotiate a resolution of the Bankruptcy Proceeding – will inflame efforts in confidential mediation proceedings by the Diocese, its insurers, and the Committee to provide for prompt and equitable compensation to the claimants and resolve the Bankruptcy Proceeding,” Geremia wrote in the petition.