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  Victims Say Archdiocese Wants Names Public

By Tom Heinen
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel [Milwaukee WI]
July 12, 2005

On the eve of a critical state Supreme Court decision, sexual abuse survivors accused the Milwaukee Archdiocese on Tuesday of using intimidation to discourage future lawsuits by trying to have three anonymous plaintiffs identified in public court records of cases that were being dismissed.

An archdiocesan spokeswoman denied any intent to make the names public, saying Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan remained committed to working with and hearing from survivors of clergy sexual abuse.

The flare-up was fanned by a news conference the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests held in front of the main entrance to archdiocesan offices at the Cousins Center in St. Francis.

"I just found about this yesterday," a tearful Sharon Tarantino, a survivor of clergy sexual abuse and a member of the archdiocese's Community Advisory Board on sexual abuse, said after the news conference. "It's almost like everything we have discussed during the meetings has been a lie."

Archdiocesan spokeswoman Kathleen Hohl issued a statement Tuesday saying the archdiocese never asked for public disclosure of the names of victims or survivors of clergy sexual abuse.

"In this instance, as part of the standard legal requirement for the completion of these dismissed cases, the Archdiocese of Milwaukee asked the court be given the plaintiffs' names to be kept under court seal, allowing their identities to remain anonymous. Following the dismissal of these cases, a court order was signed and kept under seal. The names are not publicly available," the statement said.

But Peter Isely, Midwest director of SNAP, contended the language of the archdiocesan attorney's request to the judge contradicts that defense. Victims' attorneys Jeffrey Anderson of Minneapolis and Jim Smith of Brookfield made similar assertions.

The cases in question involve three men who said that they were sexually abused in the 1970s by the late Father Siegfried Widera while he was assigned to St. Andrew Parish in Delavan. Widera, 67, jumped to his death in 2003 from the third-floor balcony of a Mexican hotel as police were closing in on him. He was accused of multiple counts of child molestation in California and Wisconsin.

The cases accused the archdiocese of fraudulently concealing priests' records of abuse when they were reassigned to parishes.

Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Michael D. Guolee dismissed the cases this summer, saying the statute of limitations had run out.

Attorney David Muth, representing the archdiocese, sent a letter to Guolee dated June 8 in which he argued there was no legal basis for identifying the plaintiffs only by fictional names and that to avoid the possibility of future confusion, the judge should require their names be filed with the court.

He provided the names, to be held "under seal at this time." Guolee agreed to let the names be entered into the record but ordered them kept under seal.

The dispute took place as both sides awaited the release this morning of a Supreme Court decision in another case that might modify or overturn two prior rulings that barred people sexually abused as minors by clergy from suing churches in Wisconsin.