If Salesians lose April 14 Jury Trial in LA, Cardinal Mahony will probably want his $21.5 million back. Will he send someone to break their legs?

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By Kay Ebeling
The first jury trial regarding 17 plaintiffs raped by pedophile clergy in the Salesian Religious Order comes up April 14th in LA , and I'm trying to get smart in preparation. About ten pages into the 1.5-inch thick "Plaintiffs’ Motion to Allow Discovery Relating to the Salesian Society” you can’t help but go -- “What?” In January plaintiffs won the right to pursue punitive damages against the Salesians, so now Salesian attorneys claim the Western Province has nothing at all to do with the Salesian Society in Rome, so there’s no reason to look at financial records from anything other than the California branch of the order.

City of Angels Blog readers may remember last fall when the Salesians claimed they had nothing to do with the Los Angeles Archdiocese. (See October 14, 2007 Post, "Extra: Salesian Religious Order Not Part of Catholic Church." at City of Angels 3.) Last fall Salesians attorneys filed Motion in Limine #5 asking the judge to “exclude reference to The Catholic Church, the Vatican, the Pope, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and/or Cardinal Mahony,” in the trial then scheduled for Nov. 5, as those Catholic entities have nothing at all to do with the Salesians. Soon after that post, all the Salesian Motions in Limine from October went off calendar.

In December the LA Archdiocese paid $21.5 million to the 17 Salesian plaintiffs as part of the global settlement of the LA Clergy Cases. So now if the Salesians lose this trial in April, Roger Mahony is going to want his money back.

I think this is astounding.

We could have LA Archdiocese attorneys and Roger Mahony pitted against Salesian attorneys in court later this spring, fighting it out over who gets the $21.5 million. The Salesians never let go of their cash, no matter how many times they lose civil cases. They keep appealing and appealing and asking for extensions on their appeals.

I wonder if the Salesians will be stupid enough to not pay back Cardinal Roger Mahony.

And if they don't pay back the Cardinal, who gets their legs broken, the Rector Major in Italy or some lowly accountant brother in San Francisco?

Joey Piscitelli, Northwest Director of SNAP, still hasn’t gotten paid his settlement from the July 2006 trial in San Francisco where a jury returned a verdict against the Salesians in his favor. Instead the Salesians filed an appeal, then they filed an extension on filing the appeal, apparently spending millions altogether and continuing to spend millions, all to fight payment of Piscitelli’s $600,000 settlement.

I was in court earlier this month and saw Church Attorney Steve McFeely try to prove the Salesians in California have nothing to do with the Salesians in Rome.

His Pillsbury Doughboy face beet red, McFeely stood up in front of the judge and said, “It’s just impossible (to produce financial records on the Salesians in Rome) I don't represent them. You’d be ordering the Salesians to produce something they don’t have."

McFeely’s voice is shrill and whiny, a trait he’s developed to make judges and attorneys have no choice but to stop and listen to him as he shrieks.

McFeely: “This motion is for plaintiffs in this case to get information about finances for somebody who’s not here. I don't represent them, I don't have their documents and I'm sure my client doesn't.”

I love watching Church Attorneys conjure up new concepts to protect the Bosses in the Vatican; here claiming that since they represent the California Salesians, it somehow proves there’s no connection between their clients and Rome.

How convenient.

So in a divorce a husband can claim his wife has nothing to do with him just because she’s got a different attorney. Nice logic, Salesians attorneys from the lawfirm of Foley & Lardner in LA. A concept obviously cooked up behind very thick doors, probably by a PR guy.

The Western Province of the Salesians in San Francisco did incorporate as a nonprofit back in the 1980s, undoubtedly to cash in on state and federal tax advantages of this unique American construct that is supposed to encourage philanthropy.

Hah.

Salesians accountants must have caught on in the eighties that it’s better to be a nonprofit than a church when it comes to running Boys Clubs and such in California.

Still it’s specious to say the Salesians are in any way hurting for cash, considering the mansion that is the Salesians Western Province Headquarters in San Francisco at 1100 Franklin St. an address that is close enough to Pacific Heights to mingle with the incredibly wealthy.

The Salesians Mansion in San Francisco is also close enough to the Tenderloin District to dip in and find vulnerable children who live in poverty, the target demographic of young boys and girls the Salesian brothers love oh so much....

“In San Francisco the Salesian mansion covers almost a whole block in a district that's worth hundreds of thousands of dollars a foot,” said Joey Piscatelli, SNAP’s Northern California contact. “The Salesian Mansion is this giant provincial building, 15 thousand square feet. That building alone is worth five to ten million. Then they own the Salesian High school grounds in Richmond, that's probably worth five million.” Joey went on, “In California they probably have 25 million in real estate, just in California and then they turn around and call themselves poor.”

“They have a mansion in Richmond, called the Salesian Residence and it’s new. Boys Club Center in Richmond, that's where I was molested the first time. Since I was there they've built a brand new building,” Joey continued.

“Then there’s everything they get from donations.

“They have all that property in California and don’t pay taxes on it and then they turn around and call themselves poor.”

If the Western Province of the Salesians is totally separate from the Italian Salesian headquarters, as Church Attorneys are claiming in LA courts now, then how does the Western Province pay the utility bills on that Franklin Street mansion?

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So I showed up at department 308 at 600 South Commonwealth, the new location for Clergy Cases trials, for a pre-trial hearing earlier this month, on Plaintiffs’ Motion to Allow Discovery.

Oh cool, I thought, when I saw the new judge Emilie Elias. She is femme like me, sort of my age but better tended so she looks younger. She seems to have the same no bullshit attitude my generation of American women bring to everything we do from raising our teenagers to handling scalawag defense and plaintiff attorneys like Emilie Elias apparently does.

Then it hits me as I watch the judge: She’s the person I could have been if my life hadn’t been skewed by compulsions from rape by a pedophile priest.

Sitting in the courtroom I remember when I was in college in Texas in the late 1970s, and I told my new ex I’d decided to become a judge. Going to go onto law school after I get my Journalism bachelor’s and go on to become a judge,

This man my ex who would soon successfully get total custody of our children because I was so--o-o-o-o-o screwed up, just looked at me in total amazement and sneered. I was clueless. “You want to be a judge?” His tone was sarcastic.

God this is weird, I’m thinking. Judge Emilie Elias could be my sister. She has a face shaped like mine, same lines forming around her mouth that are forming on mine, same concentrated intensity as she listens.

She’s the person I could have been.

She turns her head a certain angle and looks exactly like my cousin Theresa in Chicago minus about 300 pounds. My cousin Theresa in Chicago who hates me too as do all the relatives remaining alive in my family

People don’t realize the residual effects these rapes sex crimes in the Catholic Church have on Catholic families.

Just then in the courtroom was the first time I remembered, and I could have been a damn good judge, if I hadn’t had all those compulsions that got me fired from every job I ever had. I’d forgotten.

Just like now sitting in the courtroom I realize I’ve forgotten some of the attorneys’ names since last December. Got to get bury my nose in this 1.5 inch thick document about the Salesians. . . .

Onward. . .