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Lawyer ordered to pay huge fine for naming accused priest
Posted on 10/12/22 at 4:09 pm
Posted on 10/12/22 at 4:09 pm
quote:
NEW ORLEANS — A federal bankruptcy judge ordered an attorney representing dozens of victims of sexual abuse by Catholic priests to pay a massive $400,000 fine on Tuesday, because he disclosed the name of an active priest accused of sexual abuse in confidential church records.
The judge, Meredith Grabill, ruled the attorney, Richard Trahant, violated a protective order by notifying a local high school and a news reporter in early January about a priest who was still working at the school, after Trahant had seen church records marked “confidential” that implicated that priest in sexual misconduct.
According to an investigation by The Times-Picayune | New Orleans Advocate, those Archdiocese records showed an internal church investigation had concluded that Father Paul Hart had “dry sex” while fully clothed with a 17-year-old girl, but it didn’t violate the church law in place at the time that set 16 as the age of majority.
In 2002, the Vatican changed its policy to consider anyone under 18 to be a child.
The allegations against Hart had never been disclosed until the church investigation was given to a small group of attorneys in the bankruptcy case in December 2021. After seeing those documents, Trahant sent a text to his cousin, Ryan Gallagher, the principal at Brother Martin High School, asking if Hart was still the chaplain at the school. He also sent an email to Ramon Vargas, then a reporter at The Times-Picayune, telling him to keep Hart on his “radar” but not explaining why.
Days later, Hart retired, citing health issues. Two weeks later, the newspaper published a story by Vargas detailing the church investigation of Hart based on information from anonymous sources.
The Archdiocese asked Grabill to sanction Trahant for violating her orders, and she directed the U.S. Bankruptcy Trustee to investigate. In a story in The Guardian this week, Vargas reported he was questioned as part of that investigation, declined to disclose his anonymous sources and told the investigators that Trahant did not provide any of the information reported in the newspaper story.
But Grabill said Trahant, “planted a seed,” with his cousin and Vargas to ask about allegations against Hart. In a hearing in August, Trahant agreed he planted a seed, but defended why he did it and argued he did it in a way that didn’t violate the court’s protective order.
“Your Honor is a hundred percent right,” Trahant testified. “Yeah, I planted that seed. … I communicate with (my cousin) fairly frequently, and I didn’t want that guy back on campus. … The seed I planted with (Vargas) … (was) because I think this … stuff needs to be exposed.”
The $400,000 fine is far beyond any typical punishment for attorneys. But Trahant’s clients and others associated with victims of abuse by priests rushed to his defense Wednesday.
“He, without a doubt, cares more about the victims and the damage done to them than the Archdiocese and the Vatican,” said Michael Brandner Sr., whose brother, Scot, committed suicide after receiving love letters in the 1980s from Father Brian Highfill. Brandner had to gather years of complaints against Highfill already filed with the church by multiple victims to get the Archdiocese to add Highfill to its list of credibly accused clergy in 2020.
“Here is a guy (Trahant) trying to protect children from these monsters and he gets punished for it,” Brandner said. “It’s disgusting.”
Grabill has already removed Trahant and his group’s clients from a committee of abuse survivors that was supposed to negotiate a settlement with the Archdiocese. She removed them hours before Archbishop Gregory Aymond was supposed to meet with the survivors committee for initial settlement negotiations.
Grabill wrote in her sanctions order that Trahant had wasted the church and court’s time and money. She quoted an argument by the Archdiocese that Trahant’s disclosure ad halso caused “hurt and trauma (to be) revisited upon the alleged victim,” although there was no evidence of that presented in the record.
“His actions created waste, disrupted the progress in this case, and delayed resolution of this particular matter for months,” she wrote. She said Trahant never took action in court to challenge the confidentiality of the records. She also noted that the investigation of the matter would cost the church $760,000 in legal and professional fees and ordered Trahant to pay $400,000 of it.
Trahant said he would appeal Grabill’s ruling.
“I don’t regret doing it,” he said. “I might do it in a different manner, but I knew something had to be done, and it had to be done fast. I feel like I did the right thing, morally, ethically and legally.”
LINK
Posted on 10/12/22 at 4:12 pm to John88
quote:
he disclosed the name of an active priest accused of sexual abuse
Posted on 10/12/22 at 4:14 pm to John88
Finally a lawyer doing something admirable. #respect
Posted on 10/12/22 at 4:16 pm to John88
Ricky's a good guy and a good lawyer. Don't know enough about what happened to say whether he was wrong or right legally but morally he did the right thing. There's also the future crime exception to confidentiality and it can certainly be argued this miscreants is and was a threat to kids.
Either way, $400k is abusive and not commensurate with what he did. Ain't nobody spend that much on this type of investigation.
Edit: Jones Walker lawyers billing $750 an hour to the Archdiocese. Maybe.
Either way, $400k is abusive and not commensurate with what he did. Ain't nobody spend that much on this type of investigation.
Edit: Jones Walker lawyers billing $750 an hour to the Archdiocese. Maybe.
This post was edited on 10/12/22 at 4:18 pm
Posted on 10/12/22 at 4:16 pm to John88
quote:
According to an investigation by The Times-Picayune | New Orleans Advocate, those Archdiocese records showed an internal church investigation had concluded that Father Paul Hart had “dry sex” while fully clothed with a 17-year-old girl, but it didn’t violate the church law in place at the time that set 16 as the age of majority.
WTF. This sort of thing isn't an isolated event, either.
Posted on 10/12/22 at 4:20 pm to John88
Attorney's use the law to justify representing all manner of deviants and criminals, letting killers and rapists walk the streets on a daily basis.
Now they want to stand on a morality soap box?
Now they want to stand on a morality soap box?
Posted on 10/12/22 at 4:22 pm to John88
The church just doesn’t have any idea how not to frick themselves publicly in these matters.. they only see the short term and never how they are forcing a death spiral in terms of participation and members
Posted on 10/12/22 at 4:23 pm to John88
I am not surprised by these allegations about Father Paul Hart, only surprise would be if there isn't more.
Posted on 10/12/22 at 4:24 pm to TCO
quote:
Finally a lawyer doing something admirable.
He,
quote:
violated a protective order
You simply don't do that. There's one right now in a very public case I would love to violate for the common good, but you just don't do it.
Posted on 10/12/22 at 4:25 pm to John88
quote:
he disclosed the name of an active priest accused of sexual abuse in confidential church records.
Why is the accused protected by confidentiality to begin with?
Curious which is worse, the protection offered to the accused or the disclosure thereof.
Posted on 10/12/22 at 4:30 pm to John88
Holy shite, Ricky is a good friend of mine...
Posted on 10/12/22 at 4:32 pm to Bjorn Cyborg
quote:
Attorney's use the law to justify representing all manner of deviants and criminals, letting killers and rapists walk the streets on a daily basis.
Well yeah, the very basis of our legal system, which is engrained I'm the constitution, is that all accused persons have right to a full and fair trial, which includes defense counsel.
Posted on 10/12/22 at 4:36 pm to John88
So do the principal and reporter get into any trouble because of this? Or just the attorney?
Posted on 10/12/22 at 4:36 pm to John88
quote:
internal church investigation had concluded that Father Paul Hart had “dry sex” while fully clothed with a 17-year-old girl, but it didn’t violate the church law in place at the time that set 16 as the age of majority.
What? When does the church law EVER allow a priest to have these kind of relations with ANYONE? This is an idiotic statement. Didn’t violate church law because she was 17, not under 16? Infuriating. Also- imagine if you had a kid in that school and then found out later that the church and school knew what he had done and still had him there on campus? There are just so many different things wrong here. I’m no lawyer, but I think that lawyer who was fined is a hero. I realize that he did technically violate his professional ethics and a court order, but non-legally speaking, this man’s a hero.
This post was edited on 10/12/22 at 4:58 pm
Posted on 10/12/22 at 4:43 pm to AlxTgr
quote:
There's one right now in a very public case I would love to violate for the common good, but you just don't do it.
^^ planting a seed baw?
Posted on 10/12/22 at 4:44 pm to PhillyTiger90
quote:
So do the principal and reporter get into any trouble because of this? Or just the attorney?
just the attorney
neither Vargas nor Gallagher are bound by the court's order since neither is a participant in this case
Posted on 10/12/22 at 4:47 pm to AlxTgr
quote:
You simply don't do that. There's one right now in a very public case I would love to violate for the common good, but you just don't do it.
I like you as a poster and you're great in the legal cases posted on here. Sure, he violated a court order - this is fact. He exposed a monster. I don't give a frick what court order was in place. Morally, he did the right thing. He should pay the expected (average) fine for it.
Posted on 10/12/22 at 4:48 pm to AlxTgr
quote:
You simply don't do that.
Now do the Supreme Court Leak.. Still don't know what happened or if anyone was fined
Posted on 10/12/22 at 4:53 pm to John88
Ricky can afford his morality.
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