MINNESOTA
KARE
[with video]
John Croman, KARE November 14, 2014
ST. PAUL, Minn. — Local Catholic officials have been accused of destroying videotapes that purportedly contained homemade child pornography.
The law firm of Jeff Anderson and Associates on Thursday released a set of documents suggesting church leaders threw out the tapes, allegedly found inside former St. Paul priest Donald Dummer’s room. The case dates back to 1997 when Rev. Dummer was assigned to St. Mary’s Catholic Church on St. Paul’s East Side.
Attorney Mike Finnegan said the paper trail also implies officials in the Vatican’s U-S embassy in Washington, D.C. urged the St. Paul Archdiocese to keep the case out of the public eye.
“Instead of reporting this to the police, instead of removing Dummer, they send this stuff back to Archbishop Flynn.” Finnegan remarked. “Their concern is about public scandal, and that this might get out.”
The files were recently unsealed as part of an out of court settlement in a public nuisance lawsuit Anderson’s clients brought against the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis.
An unnamed employee of St. Mary’s wrote a letter to the Vatican Embassy, known as the Apostolic Nunciature, in 2002 detailing efforts he’d made years earlier to expose Rev. Dummer. The letter was also signed by the organization known as Catholic Parents OnLine.
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