Feds have specific tools to investigate dioceses

Internet use, interstate travel may be targeted

In the catalog of horrors that is the Pennsylvania grand jury report on clergy sexual abuse, it’s far from limited to Pennsylvania.

The report is rife with episodes of priests taking their young victims out of state, to places like Niagara Falls, the Jersey shore or an amusement park in Ohio.

It’s also replete with evidence of “bishops helping bishops” in decades past, in which a Pennsylvania diocese agrees to take in a known abuser who has scandalized parishioners in an out-of-state diocese and put him in ministry here among unsuspecting parishioners.

Church leaders say these are episodes from the past and that they have enacted progressively tougher reforms in recent decades.

But as they now come to light, as well as more recent cases involving clergy accused of internet-related child pornography and sex solicitation, these are the kinds of interstate crimes that federal prosecutors could take an interest in as they investigate Catholic dioceses in Pennsylvania and Buffalo, N.Y.

That’s hardly all. Any use of internet or other communications devices could fall under the federal jurisdiction, as could misuse of funds to conceal or further crimes,

said former U.S. Attorney David Hickton of the Western District of Pennsylvania.

Mr. Hickton, now a law professor at the University of Pittsburgh, said there are plenty of questions for the feds to ask regarding settlements, for example.

“Where’s the money coming from?” he said. “If it’s church money, we should have a transparent accounting. Were they using settlements to conceal or to give reparations to victims?”

In 2016, Mr. Hickton launched an inquiry into the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations, or RICO, Act in the wake of a grand jury report into abuse and cover-up there. That resulted last year in a memorandum of understanding between his successor and the diocese that established various measures to hold the church accountable.

His office also secured convictions of priests from the Pittsburgh and AltoonaJohnstown dioceses for federal sex crimes such as internet child pornography, he said, just as it also brought such cases against others outside the church, including a scoutmaster, a youth coach and a Canadian law enforcement officer.

The Diocese of Buffalo on Friday confirmed that it, too, is under federal investigation by its local U.S. Attorney’s office. It received a subpoena “several months ago” to produce documents, it said.

That appears unrelated to recent subpoenas by the U.S. Attorney’s office for eastern Pennsylvania, issued to dioceses throughout the commonwealth in following up on the Aug. 14 grand jury report giving a seven-decade history of the sexual abuse of children in much of the state. Most Pennsylvania dioceses acknowledged receiving such subpoenas Thursday, with the exception of the Diocese of AltoonaJohnstown, which has not returned several requests for comment.

WKBW-TV news in Buffalo reported that that diocese’s lawyers reached an agreement with the feds in which the diocese would produce what turned out to be a limited amount of documents on living priests who may have been involved with child pornography, taking victims across state lines or using cell phones or social media to perpetrate such crimes.

Mr. Hickton said there are various categories a federal investigator could look at.

Among other things, he said, federal investigators could also be looking at mental health treatment centers where priests were sent in various states after they were accused of abuse.

“I would be looking at who went there, when, under what circumstances, what triggered their location there,” Mr. Hickton sad. “If the church is going to take the high road that since 2002 [when it adopted a zero-tolerance policy], they fixed this, you’ve got to make sure people here weren’t doing what they were doing in Buffalo.”

Media investigations in Buffalo this year have resulted in revelations of accusations against dozens of priests, and WKBW reported that Bishop Richard Malone had “direct knowledge and involvement in the cover-up of allegations surrounding two priests.”

Jim VanSickle of Coraopolis, an advocate for fellow survivors of sexual abuse by priests, said he was brought from Pennsylvania to Ohio as a teen more than 30 years ago by the Rev. David Poulson. A priest of the Diocese of Erie, Poulson on Wednesday pleaded guilty to abusing two other youths more recently.

Mr. VanSickle said he also was abused in Pennsylvania, but under state law too much time has passed for there to be criminal charges. While he’s unsure whether federal statute of limitations could apply, he’s hoping that prosecutors could use tools such as RICO, which allow for civil or criminal cases involving organizations over a pattern of conduct over time.

“I’m hoping they bring a whole new level of possibilities for justice,” he said.

The federal investigations come as the Pennsylvania grand jury has also prompted several other states to launch similar investigations.

“I never thought I’d live to see the day when this would actually happen and the chickens would come home to roost,” said the Rev. Thomas Doyle of Virginia, a canon lawyer who was one of the authors of a 1985 report to bishops warning of the growing crisis of sexual abuse.

Father Doyle, who already served as an expert witness to the Pennsylvania grand jury, said he’s being consulted by about five other state attorneys general.

He said it’s a sign that the deference that bishops once received from law enforcement is now “completely gone.”

“The only way our society will ever find out the truth about how widespread and deep this problem has been is with a widespread and professional investigation,” he said.