MINNESOTA
Legal Examiner
Posted by Mike Bryant
June 5, 2015
Today the Ramsey County Attorney’s office filed criminal charges against the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis for “failing to protect children” from an abusive priest. The charges arise from the actions of former priest Curtis Wehmeyer.
As reported by the Minneapolis Tribune:
Today we are alleging a disturbing institutional and systemic pattern of behavior committed by the highest levels of leadership of the archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis over the course of decades, said Ramsey County Attorney John Choi.
This is a historic action and involves a County Attorney who has been tentative to this point in bringing claims. As Jeff Anderson said today:
I have, in the past, been openly critical of the seeming inaction by the Ramsey County Attorney’s Office and John Choi in not charging the Archdiocese officials pertaining to Curtis Wehmeyer and others, and expressed frustration over a seeming lack of vigor. Today, I am praising the Ramsey County Attorney for taking this action. It is evident that it took that office a long time to carefully develop the evidence and to conduct their own independent investigation, armed with the documents disgorged in civil litigation and the depositions taken of the top officials, by interviewing witnesses and developing a body of evidence that has supported a criminal complaint against the Archdiocese as a corporation.
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