DALLAS (TX)
Morning News
Nov. 18, 2019
By Jennifer Emily and David Tarrant
Six months after Dallas police raided Dallas Catholic Diocese offices for records related to allegations of sexual abuse by priests, the investigation appears stalled.
Attorneys for the diocese and the city of Dallas are sorting through the records seized in the May 15 raid on diocesan property to determine which ones involve the five priests named in the search warrant, according to documents obtained by The Dallas Morning News.
State District Judge Brandon Birmingham, who signed the search warrant for the records, ordered that Dallas police must return all records that are not related to the investigation or any record that “exceeds the scope of the search warrant as written,” court records show. Some records are exempt from disclosure because they are protected by attorney-client privilege.
Dallas police officials carry cardboard boxes Wednesday into the Catholic Diocese of Dallas as they continued to gather evidence. Dallas police on Wednesday morning raided several Dallas Catholic Diocese offices after a detective said church officials have “thwarted” his investigations into allegations of sexual abuse by priests. Dallas Bishop Edward J. Burns said at an afternoon news conference that the diocese had given personnel files “for all the priests named in the warrant” and had been has been cooperating with the police requests.
The court said the diocese and the police have until Dec. 6 to complete their review of the seized documents.
Annette Taylor, spokeswoman for the Dallas diocese, said some records have already been returned.
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