Ian MacLellan for BuzzFeed News The former St. Joseph's Orphanage in Burlington, Vermont.

In the wake of a recent BuzzFeed News investigation that revealed widespread abuse of children at a Catholic orphanage in Vermont, the state’s attorney general convened a task force last month to investigate, pledging to stand up for the victims of abuse. But that office undertook a previous investigation into the abuse of Vermont children by Catholic clergy, in 2002, the results of which were never released. Those confidential results — some of which have now been obtained by BuzzFeed News — provide dramatic evidence of how many secrets the diocese kept, and how willing state authorities were to keep them hidden. Two months ago, a Pennsylvania grand jury concluded a two-year investigation by naming more than 300 priests who it said had abused more than 1,000 children. But back in 2002, the Vermont attorney general decided not to make the investigation's findings public, even though prosecutors said they found probable cause to bring criminal charges against at least one priest. When the investigation concluded, the head of the criminal division informed the diocese that it did not "set out to investigate or determine whether" a priest “poses a current risk of harm to children" because that would be "outside our jurisdiction." The inquiry began a few months after the Boston diocese’s sex abuse scandal broke into public view. William Sorrell, then Vermont’s attorney general, instructed the Burlington diocese to hand over information about allegations of sexual abuse by priests between 1950 and 2000. The diocese submitted the names of 20 men and was later asked to turn over records on a 21st. In many cases, church authorities had known about the allegations for years.

Toby Talbot / AP In 2002, William Sorrell, the attorney general of Vermont, oversaw an investigation into alleged sexual abuse by Catholic priests.

The investigation found enough evidence to warrant charging at least one of the priests, Father Brian Mead, with multiple counts of lewd and lascivious acts with a child, according to internal church documents and confidential correspondence obtained by BuzzFeed News. But over the years, as the diocese sat on the allegations and sometimes even paid off the accusers, the statute of limitations expired. As a result, neither Mead nor any other priest faced any criminal consequences for their alleged behavior. Instead, Cindy Maguire, the head of the criminal division, wrote confidential letters to the bishop, outlining the allegations against each priest, what steps had been taken to investigate, and the outcomes of those investigations. And that was that. "When you are dealing with a number of allegations, some that date back decades, it would not be prudent to selectively release documents, even with consent," Maguire said in 2002. Some of the allegations against the priests came out over the years through press reports or civil lawsuits. Nine have remained secret. BuzzFeed News has obtained thousands of pages of internal church documents and confidential letters between the diocese and the attorney general covering seven of the cases. We are publishing the results of the one in which the attorney general's office stated that it had found probable cause that the priest had abused children.

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