Federal prosecutor may file a lawsuit after a grand jury found two former bishops helped cover up the sexual abuse of hundreds of children over 40 years

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

A federal prosecutor may file a racketeering lawsuit against a Roman Catholic diocese where a state grand jury found two former bishops helped cover up the sexual abuse of hundreds of children by more than 50 clergy over a 40-year period.

The ongoing investigation of the Altoona-Johnstown diocese in Pennsylvania grew out of the prosecution of the Reverend Joseph Maurizio Jr, 71, US attorney David Hickton said on Friday.

The Somerset county priest was convicted last year of molesting two street children during missionary trips to Honduras. He was sentenced to nearly 17 years in prison, fined $50,000 and forced to pay his victims $10,000 each.

Hickton said the investigation concerns whether diocesan officials engaged in a pattern of criminal activity that would fall under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, commonly referred to as Rico.

The statute of limitations has lapsed on criminal racketeering charges, but there is no time limit for filing a Rico lawsuit, Hickton said. KDKA-TV first reported that Hickton was considering such a lawsuit. A diocesan spokesman didn’t immediately comment.

“The remedy that would be available under a civil Rico would be some sort of injunctive relief,” Hickton said. “If we were able to get a consent decree, that would be one route.”

Injunctive relief is simply a court order requiring the diocese to do something. A consent decree is a voluntary agreement between prosecutors and a target that certain reforms would be enacted.

Mitchell Garabedian, a Boston attorney who represented dozens of those victims and was portrayed by Stanley Tucci in the Oscar-winning film Spotlight, said he favored the Rico lawsuit even though many victims “would find incarceration for the supervisors more suitable”.

“I think the tactic is an approach that must be taken given the depth and scope of the supervisors enabling sexual abuse,” Garabedian said.

If a consent decree is reached, he said, “many victims would like to see a complete admission of guilt, and perhaps an independent supervisor appointed to review the activities of the diocese”.

Hickton’s comments came on the heels of a grand jury report released last month by state attorney general Kathleen Kane.

That grand jury was especially critical of bishops James Hogan and Joseph Adamec. Hogan, who headed the diocese from 1966 to 1986, died in 2005. Adamec, who succeeded him, retired in 2011.

The grand jury found Hogan, in particular, held sway over police and prosecutors in the diocese and often reassigned priests accused of molesting children instead of removing them from duty. Adamec threatened accusers with excommunication and generally worked harder to hide or settle abuse allegations than to discipline the priests accused, the grand jury found.

An attorney for Adamec denied wrongdoing and said 14 priests accused of molestation on Adamec’s watch were given psychiatric screenings. Nine were suspended or removed and the five who were returned to ministry didn’t reoffend, Adamec’s attorney said.

Hickton would not say what he believes church officials may have done wrong.

A former federal prosecutor, who now teaches law at St Vincent College near Latrobe, said it might not matter.

Professor Bruce Antkowiak said the Rico Act is used to target individuals who “operated or managed an enterprise through a pattern of racketeering activity”. To prove that, a prosecutor must show the target committed specific crimes listed in the act – including murder, extortion and robbery.

Mail fraud – essentially using the mail in any step of a fraud – or extortion are other Rico crimes that could conceivably relate.

“Some of the federal crimes listed are amazing for their elasticity and the kinds of things that prosecutors can allege come under their umbrella,” Antkowiak said.

According to the grand jury report, a whistleblower accused Maurizio in 2009 of abusing the boys, and the diocese conducted its own investigation, including hiring a translator to review the victim’s claims.

Diocesan records “show a high-ranking Diocesan official concluding the alleged conduct was ‘impossible’”, the report said.

Kane’s report grew out of allegations that a Franciscan friar, who has since killed himself, molested dozens of students at a school in the diocese from 1992 to 2000.