Judge breezes through motions to exclude evidence and testimony, in Salesian Religious Order civil case trial in LA, re pedophile priest Titian Miani

*****
By Kay Ebeling
The cops crouched behind squadcars with guns pointed, cordoning off the street down by Wilshire Boulevard. I had to sprint eight blocks to connect again with a rerouted bus, due to police activity. And that's just what I went through to get home at lunch to boost my laptop battery. The first of several cases against the Salesian religious order head to a jury trial in LA Superior Court Department 308 this month, and so far I'm the only journalist covering it.

At one point Tuesday Ray Boucher jumped up angry at Steve McFeely: “For him to say there’s no evidence when his defendant has destroyed evidence,” and I thought of a recent phone call with Joey Piscitelli. When Salesians finally turned over personnel files from his case in 2006, they were empty, he said. “30 years of personnel files with nothing in them.”

Judge Emilie Elias slammed through defendants’ motions in limine so fast in Tuesday's hearing, Wayne Mason, attorney for the Salesians hadn’t even gotten out of his chair to object before the judge denied two of them. Elias directed the hearing through 15 of the motions, and the other 15 or so will likely be resolved when the hearing continues Thursday morning.

Then begins jury selection and the trial.

Judge Elias did not appear familiar with Servants of the Paracletes. When the hearing got to defendants’ motion to exclude evidence or mention of the former New Mexico pedophile priest treatment center, Judge Elias said:

"Re servants of the Par-Par-- how do you pronounce it?"

EVERY ATTORNEY IN THE ROOM: Paracletes.

CHURCH ATTORNEY TOM DELANEY: They didn't start their infamous psycho sex abuse program until the 1970s.

JUDGE ELIAS: Not ‘til the 70s Do you agree?

PLAINTIFF ATTORNEY HELEN ZUKIN: What counsel is referring to is, the Servants of the Paracletes went to a different approach for dealing with pedophiles in 1977, but in the 1940s the Paracletes were treating pedophiles. In a 1952 letter a priest writes, “This is an old story for us, dealing with priests who deal with the young.”

JUDGE: This is when they wanted to buy the island?

ZUKIN: They dealt with pedophiles in a steady stream. In 1977 they went to a different approach. They weren’t going to put them on an island, but put them in a different treatment program.

Church Attorney Steve McFeely made his presence known:

MCFEELY: I have to object. There is NO evidence that the Salesians EVER sent ANYONE to this place for a sexual abuse problem. No foundation for it AT ALL. This is GROSS Speculation.

JUDGE: The question is, if this is going on at the facility in New Mexico, you're right. But these priests could have been sent there for alcoholism.

(ALL THE PLAINTIFF REPS IN THE ROOM AND ME WITH THEM GIVE OUT AN AUDIBLE SIGH.)

In the clergy sex crime “community” everybody knows, anyone sent to the Paracletes in their 30 years they operated was probably a pedophile.

Especially if the priest is also a party to these cases.

Judge Fromholz would have known that.

When Haley Fromholz retired in December, Emilie Elias inherited the Clergy Cases, what's left of them. There was one holdout in the 560 cases settled last year in LA. The Salesians Religious Order continue their battle even after the LA Archdiocese has paid out the 17 cases that were the Salesian part of the settlement. The Salesians never admit any of their priests are guilty. So if they lose these trials, they have to repay Cardinal Mahony, if they win, the Salesians' debt to the archdiocesee is forgiven. . .this is Reconciliation 2008 style.

JUDGE ELIAS: This motion is granted, the Servants of the Paracletes cannot be used in opening arguments but motions in limine can always be changed. The evidence can be entered if someone brings it up.

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'The 1962'
Salesians claim none of them saw the Crimen Solicitaciones document that the Vatican put out in 1962, a document the attorneys have come to call "1962."

Tony Demarco said, "It was sent to every parish and religious order throughout the world in 1962.

"For them now to say it wasn’t received by the Salesians. . ."

Wayne Mason replied: "The Salesians have testified none of them were aware of 1962."

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REPREHENSIBLE
There were 12 attorneys for the defense and four for the plaintiffs in court this morning and arguments were often about the legal concept of "reprehensibility." At one point the judge seemed to talk in circles saying the attorneys were talking in circles.

JUDGE ELIAS: “Reprehensibility is them not doing anything about it. Not that they did it but that Salesians did nothing about it. If they did nothing about it, that presupposes somebody had to know about it.”

MASON: With regards to BC, who has testified in deposition for this case, he did not provide notice about the relationship he had with Miani.

ME: Calling what happened to a young boy with Father Titian Miani a "relationship" is reprehensible in itself, Mr. Wayne Mason from Texas, flown in special to defend the incredibly reprehensible Salesian religious order.

In that same phone call, Joey Piscitelli described his cross examination by Wayne Mason during his Salesian case jury trial in San Francisco in 2006. “He’s a Bible banger,” said Piscitelli. “When I was on the witness stand, Mason said, do you believe in God. He screamed out, ‘I mean Our Lord Jesus Christ, do you believe in him?’ He was looking at the jury with big eyes.”

Because Joey had passed out a leaflet that mentioned God, Mason was able to run with this line of questioning. “He said, ‘Have you ever invoked the word of Our Lord Jesus Christ?’ in a l-o-o-n-g loud voice.”

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The way Steve McFeely Talks:
"There is NO evidence that the Salesians EVER sent ANYONE to this place."
Steve McFeely is a scary dude. I’d hate to have him stand over me hollering in that voice. The words in caps are triple decibles, with a tone that cuts, slices through any thought in your head. His tongue is sharp with a ripping force.

Thank God for the Justice System or guys like Steve McFeely would be able to boss everybody around just by throwing around their weight and volume.

DeMarco says: Two priests sodomized the boy on the same desk using the same words. Their constitution shows an expectation of reporting-

Then they all started talking at once, until Boucher burst out in anger:

“For him to say there’s no evidence when his defendant has destroyed evidence.”

*****
The Salesians claim none of their hierarchy ever saw Crimen Solicitaciones which the attorneys call “1962.”

MASON: The Salesians have testified that none of them were aware of this document. All the ones that are alive that were around at that time say they were not aware of this document. It may have been in the hands of the Catholic Church.

The judge stops the banter and looks at Wayne Mason.

JUDGE: Now. The Salesians are the third largest religious order in the church, is that correct? So isn’t it reasonable that the Salesians would have received a copy of 1962?

MASON: (STUTTERING) I don't think, uh--

DELANEY: [BABBLES SOMETHING ABOUT WHAT THE JURY WILL THINK]

JUDGE: I'm inclined to deny.

*****
JUDGE: Number 4: Reference to the Catholic church, the Salesians want to be considered totally separate from the Catholic Church:

A snicker goes around the courtroom.

CONTINUED WEDNESDAY:

Now here's a side trip, in memory of Hunter Thompson

In San Francisco the plaintiffs nicknamed Steve McFeely Mr. Eraserhead. The appearance of all the attorneys defending the Salesians deserves comment here.

All but two of the 12 defense attorneys are Ugly-y-y-y-.

I mean these Salesian Defense Attorneys have been worked over with a ugly stick. I apologize, guys, but it’s something you can’t help but notice.

Almost each defense attorney has something off kilter on their face, or a strange shaped body, hair that would be greasy except these demons give in to human practices such as daily bathing so they appear clean.

I don't know any other way to describe them. Every single one of the defense attorneys but the two from Northern Californa has an amazing trait of ugliness, such as a face totally covered with pockmarks, a face so elongated and oval with pointed appendages or covered with bumps that it appears to be a mask or the little witch girl in Little Lulu comics. Much has been said about Steve McFeely’s puffy face surrounded by a puffy bald head, it’s incredible.

It's like these individuals have collected themselves together to play out some horrific lifetime karma.

Even without the obvious demonic element one brings up, considering these defense attorneys are defending priests who used sacraments in the church to rape children, it is extremely strange that SO MANY of these defense attorneys are JUST PLAIN Ugly.

At the same time attorneys for the Plaintiffs stride in showing they come from Beverly Hills and they fit in that town, with the clothes, the faces, stunningly beautiful faces, the kinds of faces that make people stop in the street. The plaintiff attorneys glow.

IRONICALLY ENOUGH

Attorneys for the plaintiffs have karma to go through life beautiful, and all the good things that happen to a person because of that.

So even though there were 12 or more attorneys for the defense and 4 for the plaintiffs, you just know which ones have got God on their side.

It just has to be said, it's as plain as day

Sorry, guys, but when it's an 800 pound elephant in the room, I have to mention it.

*****
Speaking of Church Attorneys:
Lee Potts, attorney for Cardinal Roger Mahony, was there taking notes in a chicken scrawl

A couple lawyers showed up from Hennigan, the Archdiocese’s lead law firm. Lee Potts sat sort of in front of me squiggling on a yellow legal pad with a red felt tip pen. His penmanship keeps anyone looking over his shoulder from reading it.

Lee Potts took notes for Cardinal Roger Mahony throughout the hearing in red felt marker chicken scratches on the yellow sheets

I think Leila Nourami as she adjusts to life in America is beginning to realize she’s missed out on something. If she hadn’t been born in Iran, raised in England, then educated in Paris, she would not be so culturally deprived. She might have been a Southern California femme enjoying the topography here.

She'd get some sun on her face.

I think if Leila Nourami had grown up in LA or Orange County she would have ended up at Berkeley applying her jackhammer intelligence to radical political theology.

But for some reason she’s devoting a potentially stellar career to working with a law firm that has her defending pedophile priests in one of the sleaziest religious orders in the Catholic Church, the Salesians Religious Order.

Sleazy
The defense team has a greasy aura
And they defend pedophile Catholic priests in the Salesians

*****
My Perilous Trek Home For Lunch:
As I'm pulling my laptop on wheels up Western Avenue running away from the police activity on Wilshire, I remember the judge saying

“We'll have to talk about reprehsibility over the lunch period. I'm not going to allow in any 'where there’s smoke there’s fire' evidence.”

All the attorneys are sitting in the judge’s chambers munching on chicken salad sandwiches while I'm stranded out here at Third and Western with buses passing me by, I thought and cried.

Cried for about a half hour, added a good 27 more lines around my eyes.

Then at home with my laptop battery boosting, I listened to The Massage (linked at bottom of page), and then as I bent my head in prayer, Kevin Nash went over the first part of The Book of James, again. The Book of James gets quoted a lot in ghetto scripture readings.

Consider it joy when you face hardship.

I thought of how much more lean muscle mass I developed as I pulled my laptop up Western Avenue, then several more blocks to get from Western to my home.

All things ARE working for a greater good.

I don't know if Christ was really Son of God. I just know when you live a Christian life, wonderful spiritual doors open up for you.

PREVIEW OF PART TWO CONTINUED WEDNESDAY

BOUCHER JUMPS UP: Miani has denied that he ever molested a child. The defendants are calling our clients alleged victims.

JUDGE: Is Miani coming to testify? [DISCUSSION ] Okay the answer is, we don’t know.

(Tomorrow’s post, more from Tuesday’s hearing, will go up at City of Angels Blog in the afternoon Pacific Time)

Onward and don't forget to click my PayPal button. . .