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Article Category: 2007 February

Judge rules that priest files must be released

Description:

Article originally prepared on : 13 February 2007

http://www.chicagodefender.com/page/national.cfm?ArticleID=8398

February 7, 2007

LOSANGELES - A judge Tuesday ordered the Roman Catholic Church to releasethousands of pages of insurance records and confidential files relatedto a notorious case of sex abuse by a priest.

Los Angeles Superior CourtJudge Peter D. Lichtman ordered the Archdiocese of Milwaukee to makepublic 3,000 pages of insurance records and hundreds of pages from thedisciplinary files of former priest Siegfried Widera.

Lichtman wrote that Widera'sfiles prove that "priests with known sexual proclivities have beenhanded off from location to another without regard to the potentialharm to the children of the Church."

The lead plaintiffs' attorneyfor more than 700 clergy abuse lawsuits pending in Southern Californiasaid the order would set a precedent for gaining access to the files ofother priests, making it easier to determine when the church knew aboutmolestation charges and how it responded.

"I don't think there'sanything that's come out of California that's been this comprehensiveand significant," said attorney Raymond Boucher.

A spokeswoman for the Archdiocese of Milwaukee did not immediately return a call Tuesday.
In the 59-page ruling, Lichtman systematically struck down thearchdiocese's arguments for keeping the documents private, includingclaims that they are protected by third-party privacy rights, the FirstAmendment and the confidential business rights of the archdiocese.

Church attorneys in LosAngeles and San Diego have used similar arguments to keep priest filesin hundreds of cases out of the public eye.

Widera was convicted inWisconsin in 1973 of sexual perversion. The Archdiocese of Milwaukeetransferred him to California in 1981. He was facing 42 counts of childmolestation in the two states when he died in 2003 after leaping from ahotel balcony in Mexico.

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