California attorney general investigating dioceses’ handling of sex abuse cases

SAN JOSE - The California Attorney General’s Office is reviewing how a dozen Catholic dioceses, including the dioceses of Santa Rosa, Sacramento, San Jose and Oakland, and the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, handled sexual abuse allegations over the past two decades.

In a letter Thursday, the office asked the dioceses to preserve files and documents that concern their compliance as mandatory reporters of child abuse to local law enforcement.

“The California Department of Justice is conducting a review of your archdiocese’s handling of sexual misconduct allegations involving children, including whether your archdiocese has adequately reported allegations of sexual misconduct, as required under California’s Child Abuse and Neglect Reporting Act,” said Attorney General Xavier Becerra in a copy of the letter obtained by the Sacramento Bee.

The Diocese of Santa Rosa is complying with the request, said Bishop Robert Vasa.

“The Diocese of Santa Rosa does have a letter from (Attorney General) Becerra instructing us to ‘preserve documents’ which the Diocese has relating to the abuse of children by clergy or other employees of the Diocese,” Vasa wrote Friday in an email. “We will certainly comply with this request and have every intention to be cooperative with the AG should further requests be made.”

A spokesman for the Sacramento diocese told the Sacramento Bee that Becerra sent letters out Thursday asking the dioceses to preserve documents relating to clergy sex abuse. One letter indicated the disclosure would be voluntary.

In addition to the Santa Rosa diocese, those in San Jose, Sacramento and the Archdiocese of Los Angeles indicated that they will cooperate.

Dioceses around the country have faced lawsuits and accusations that officials ignored clerical sex abuse or swept it under the rug.

The Santa Rosa diocese has paid out at least $31 million in settlements to victims. The figure for the L.A. archdiocese is much higher, about $740 million in settlements to victims.

Santa Rosa’s diocese is among those around the state that have released lists naming dozens of clergymen that over the years and decades had been credibly accused of sex abuse.

The investigation marks a major escalation in the widespread abuse scandal, which despite the massive settlements for victims and criminal charges against individual priests statewide has stopped short of targeting the larger institution.

“The people I represent and survivors in general are just thrilled,” Sacramento attorney Joseph George said. “I love the idea that law enforcement would come in with warrants and subpoena power and really get things done.”

George has worked with abuse survivors since late last year to file more than 100 reports of abuse involving clergy in Santa Rosa, Los Angeles, Oakland, Fresno, San Diego and Monterrey with the Attorney General’s Office.

“The hope is that the hierarchy will be held accountable and the conduct will be conveyed to the public,” he said. “They keep talking about apologies and evil and mistakes and sins, but what we’re really talking about are crimes that were made by more than just bad apples.”

In November, Becerra asked people who believe they had been sexually abused by clergy members in California to come forward, but it wasn’t clear how exactly that information was going to be used.

It’s also unclear whether Becerra’s office is seeking records from other California dioceses. However, one source told the Times that other dioceses were being contacted by the attorney general. A spokesperson from the Attorney General’s Office declined to comment Friday.

Other state attorneys general have launched Catholic clergy abuse investigations in the wake of a series of new scandals in the last year, including a Pennsylvania report that revealed a decadeslong cover-up of child sex abuse involving more than 1,000 victims and hundreds of clergy.

An Illinois attorney general’s report released in December found that the number of Catholic clergy accused of sexual abuse in that state was much higher than previously acknowledged. The report found 690 clergy accused, although church officials had publicly identified only 185 with credible allegations against them. Churches in California and elsewhere across the nation responded by releasing previously undisclosed names of clergy accused of abuse.

While other states’ attorneys general have requested or subpoenaed dioceses’ records on clergy, Becerra’s request goes further in its solicitation of records about cases involving nonclergy personnel, such as volunteers and staffers.

According to the letter, Becerra is seeking records that include all allegations of sexual misconduct with minors dating at least from 1996 to present, regardless of when the misconduct took place, along with any actions taken during that time period against any individual who was accused or who failed to report the allegations to law enforcement.

Becerra is also asking for records that show which individuals have been accused of sexual misconduct and are still active in the ministry, along with reports of alleged sexual misconduct toward a minor filed by the dioceses in compliance with the law from 1996 to the present.

The office is seeking to review all policies, procedures, documents or communications regarding the church’s compliance with state laws and any documents it maintained about individuals accused of sexual molestation of a minor including “secret archives,” personnel files, litigation files, and victim or review board files.

Attorney Anthony De Marco, who helped secure the $740 million in settlements from the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, said it’s encouraging Becerra is investigating but too soon to tell what will come of it.

“I am a little more measured as time and time again law enforcement agencies have talked of actions and nothing has come of it in terms of the church’s higher-up figures and their behavior,” he said.

Former L.A. County District Attorney Steve Cooley, who charged two dozen priests and used a grand jury to extract records from the archdiocese, said the probe may generate more information - as it did in Pennsylvania - but criminal charges are much harder to lodge against the church hierarchy.

“Conspiracy charges are based on the last overt act. The statute for conspiracy is based on the underlying crime,” Cooley said. “Here that could be obstruction of justice, and that is just a few years.”

In January, the Santa Rosa diocese released a list naming 39 priests and deacons who church leaders say committed child sexual abuse or were credibly accused of such crimes. At least 25 of those on the list are deceased, including three of four men named for the first time who had claims raised against them as part of their service for the diocese, which spanned from the early 1960s until at least the early 1980s.

None of those named are serving in public ministry in the diocese, Vasa said.

Laureen Vonnegut, 55, who was abused by a priest in Monterrey when she was 10, said she hopes the attorney general’s investigation will hold Catholic leaders accountable for their failure to act when they were confronted with allegations of abuse.

“What the priests did is awful, but the fact it was covered up and (victims) were dismissed makes the leadership co-conspirators. They’re just as bad,” she said. “What happened to being defrocked and jail time? For so long it’s been like the church is something no one can touch.”

This story includes reporting from The Mercury News. Los Angeles Times Staff Writer Kim Christensen contributed to this report.