Saginaw Catholic diocese ‘stonewalled’ investigators in alleged sex abuse case, prosecutors say

SAGINAW, MI — When a beloved priest known as “Father Bob” was charged with sex crimes a year ago, the Catholic Diocese of Saginaw vowed to help investigators.

Bishop Joseph Cistone said he had a “sincere desire for justice” and the diocese “would cooperate fully with law enforcement.”

Prosecutors say it didn’t happen that way.

In the year that followed, the diocese delayed a police investigation by failing to turn over documents. It enlisted a retired Michigan appeals court judge to act as its point person in dealing with prosecutors and the public. It waited to release information it had about the scope of the sex-abuse scandal, which so far has involved 19 priests and one deacon in the diocese.

“We’d ask for specific things and for a specific person to talk to us. We would get a person we did not ask for and they would basically read from a script,” said Mark J. Gaertner, chief assistant prosecutor for Saginaw County. Gaertner is preparing the state’s case against the Rev. Robert J. DeLand Jr., the 71-year-old Freeland priest accused of sexually assaulting a teenager and two men.

DeLand goes to trial in March on six felony charges.

The Saginaw Diocese is among several dioceses facing criticism for its handling of a sex-abuse scandal now sweeping the Catholic Church.

- In Pennsylvania, a grand jury said more than 300 priests had molested more than 1,000 children since the 1940s, and the abuse was covered up.

- The Illinois attorney general said Catholic dioceses there failed to investigate claims of sexual abuse and were withholding names of at least 500 accused clergy.

- Closer to home, the Michigan Attorney General’s Office is now investigating claims of sex abuse dating to the 1950s in all seven of the state’s Catholic dioceses.

Pope Francis has called for a worldwide summit of church leaders Feb. 21-24 at the Vatican to address the growing worldwide crisis.

Leaders in the Saginaw Diocese, home to 100,000 Catholics in mid-Michigan and the Thumb, defended their actions for months, but more recently have acknowledged the church could have done more to cooperate with the DeLand investigation.

“I do think the diocese was a bit slow in responding to requests from the civil authorities,” said interim Bishop Walter A. Hurley, who was placed to oversee the diocese after Cistone’s death in October.

Hurley sat down for an interview with MLive reporters on Feb. 5, after months of requests and canceled interview times.

“We can spend a lot of time trying to rehash the past and what might have been, but what’s important to me is that we move forward,” he said.

Chris Pham, a communication specialist for Saginaw Diocese, said the scandal is a disappointment to many of its members, adding, “We know that people’s faith is shaken.”

Priest arrested

The Rev. Robert DeLand worked for decades in the Saginaw Diocese, leading as many as nine parishes over the years, including in Bay and Saginaw counties. Most recently, he was pastor at St. Agnes Parish in Freeland, and was so popular a local road was named after him.

In August 2017, a 21-year-old man accused “Father Bob” of sexually assaulting him at Deland’s Saginaw Township condominium.

After a 17-year-old and later an 18-year-old also came forward alleging sexual abuse, police had the 17-year-old wear a recording device in DeLand’s home as part of a sting operation. DeLand was arrested the next day, capping a six-month investigation.

The diocese said it would cooperate with the police investigation. But as police began asking for records kept by the diocese, the church balked.

“We had close to 11 contacts with them leading up to that for them to cooperate with law enforcement, to come clean, to share information with us,” Gaertner said. “Each and every time, the police were stonewalled.”

Gaertner said when investigators requested documents, diocese staff would ignore the request, claim certain items didn’t exist or say they had no knowledge of them.

“They were coming over and weren’t prepared, nor willing, to engage in a proper interview by the police,” Gaertner said. “They would come over and have some documents but wouldn’t want to discuss anything outside the scope of those documents.”

On March 22, 2018, police raided both the Saginaw Diocese headquarters and the home of then Bishop Joseph Cistone to seize church records.

Three weeks after the raid, Cistone announced the appointment of former Michigan Court of Appeals Judge Michael J. Talbot to serve as its delegate to oversee the diocese’s procedures and responses to the sexual abuse of minors and sexual misconduct issues involving clergy and other diocese representatives. That role was to include having Talbot “take the lead on any and all interaction with civil authorities,” Cistone said at the time.

Investigators did not welcome the news.

“We maintained right from the get-go of (Talbot’s) involvement that it was inappropriate,” Gaertner said. “Not only his appointment, but more importantly, the function of what he was going to be doing.”

Talbot has a long history with the church. In 2002, he was named chair of the Board of Review on clerical sexual abuse complaints in the Archdiocese of Detroit.

At the time of his appointment, Talbot said he was coming into the Saginaw Diocese with a clean slate and hoped to hear from victims of clergy abuse. He also said he wanted to establish a line of communication with civil authorities in all 11 counties the Saginaw Diocese oversees.

“I hope now that folks will … call the diocese, because we can offer them counseling and an extra dimension of the spiritual dimension. If there’s a hesitation, call the prosecutor or your local law enforcement agency,” Talbot said at the time.

Investigators didn’t like that message, and told the public to contact police first, not church officials, to report sex crimes.

Zach Hiner, executive director of the St. Louis, Missouri-based Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, also challenged the use of an independent delegate by a diocese.

“Our issue with appointments like these is that ‘independent’ review boards are never truly independent, as they are impaneled and empowered by the dioceses themselves and report their findings to church officials,” Hiner said.

On May 2, 2018, Cistone and Talbot met with Gaertner and Saginaw County Prosecutor John McColgan, when the former judge asked prosecutors about potential allegations against other, still-active priests, Gaertner said. Neither Talbot nor prosecutors have commented on what answers were provided during that session.

Gaertner said he has had no further contact with Talbot.

Talbot agreed that the relationship with law enforcement didn’t go as well as he had hoped.

“It just didn’t seem to work, and I don’t know what that was all about,” Talbot said. “I did talk with the prosecutor and offered total cooperation.

“We did the best we could. I can’t put my finger on it if it was chemistry or lack of trust in us. We were never asked to provide or assist,” Talbot said.

Hurley says now that Talbot was brought in because Cistone was too ill to handle the investigation. Talbot left his position after Cistone’s death from lung cancer in October, Hurley told MLive.

“When someone is seriously ill, it’s very difficult for them to handle things,” Hurley said. “When Bishop Cistone died and I came, there was no longer a need for (Talbot’s) particular role.”

Talbot did not leave as a result of the strained relationship between the diocese and prosecutors, Hurley said. Hurley also did not think it was a mistake for Cistone to appoint Talbot.

Catholic sex abuse scandal hits Michigan, the U.S. and the world

Catholic sex abuse scandal hits Michigan, the U.S. and the world

The investigation of DeLand wasn’t Cistone’s first involvement with a church sex scandal.

A grand jury report in 2005 alleged Cistone, when he was a high-ranking member in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia in 1996, was given several updates on efforts to silence a nun who claimed a priest there had a "predilection for naked children."

The year before, Cistone wrote a memo to the cardinal stating that accusations of sexual abuse against a priest had “the potential of becoming a PR concern," according to the report. That priest soon resigned but later went on to other posts within the church.

In 2012, a lawyer accused Cistone of witnessing the shredding of documents in 1994 that contained the names of priests suspected of child molestation.

Cistone denied wrongdoing and never faced any criminal charges.

After DeLand’s arrest in 2018, some Saginaw Diocese parishioners called for Cistone’s resignation, pointing to Deland’s arrest and past events in Philadelphia.

Abuse complaints mount

Since February 2018, when DeLand was initially charged, the diocese has received 12 complaints from adults reporting they were abused by a priest when they were minors, said Erin Looby Carlson, Diocese director of communications.

The complaints were forward to police, she said, adding that all of the accused priests have either died or were removed from ministry years ago.

Carlson further said the diocese has turned over all complaints to the Michigan Attorney General’s Office, which confirmed in a letter that it is doing its own investigation of Catholic dioceses in Michigan dating to the 1950s.

Since the investigation into DeLand began, law enforcement officials have received credible tips of about 20 people claiming they or someone they know were sexually assaulted by DeLand or one of three other Saginaw Diocese clergymen, Gaertner said.

Gaertner has enlisted the help of Saginaw County Assistant Prosecutor Melissa Hoover to help manage the legal review. The case against DeLand alone now takes up five large legal files.

Gaertner said fewer than half of the complaints his office has received relate to DeLand. The other three clergy accused in the complaints are still living, though Gaertner declined to name them or specify their current statuses in the diocese. He said he has turned any information gathered on other clergy to the Attoney General’s office as part of their statewide investigation.

The tips involve allegations that date back as far as the 1970s, Gaertner and Hoover said.

Though DeLand so far is the only clergy charged since the current investigation began, the possibility exists others could face prosecution. Police have not finished reviewing records seized from the Saginaw Diocese in 2018.

“It’s all about building the case,” Gaertner said. “There have been other (tipsters) whose information didn’t pan out. We got a lot of calls where they call and say, ‘You should pursue this angle, check this out, ask this person this.’”

Hoover added investigators have received tips that more priests engaged in misbehavior, but they’ve been able only to gather information on the four named in the 20 or so tips investigators have received.

Many of the cases may face an issue with the statute of limitations.

In Michigan, there is no statute of limitations for first-degree criminal sexual conduct, but for all other degrees of criminal sexual conduct, a suspect can be charged only within 10 years of the crime or by the alleged victim’s 21st birthday, whichever occurs later.

Tim Lennon is the president of SNAP, representing people who say they were abused by priests. He believes there are far more than 20 people who could contact law enforcement in the Saginaw Diocese to make a sex-abuse claim.

Lennon said at least 70 percent of child sexual abuse victims never come forward, a statistic supported by the U.S. Department of Justice

Lennon said he feels the secrecy and autocracy of the Catholic Church contribute to a lack of victims reporting abuse.

“The church is both hierarchical and authoritarian,” he said. “It is better to keep secrets, intimidate, et cetera. It is powerful and uses that power to seduce or intimidate district attorneys to not prosecute criminal clergy.”

The Saginaw Diocese has twice in the past year released names of clergy it says were involved in credible claims that they sexually abused children.

“Without doubt, these have been very devastating and humbling days for us as a Diocese and the Church universally,” Bishop Cistone wrote in a letter published on the Saginaw Diocese’s website on Sept. 23. “Our prayers are ceaseless for all those who have been victims of abuse by priests and church personnel.”

Other clergy named by Diocese

The Saginaw Diocese suspended DeLand in the wake of his arrest. Then, in March, the diocese said it suspended 72-year-old Rev. Ronald J. Dombrowski as a "precautionary measure" after someone told the diocese Dombrowski sexually abused them as a minor.

No criminal charges have been filed against Dombrowski.

The diocese in April 2018 named five clerics permanently removed from ministry since 2002 due to what the church said were credible allegations of sexual abuse of minors:

· Stanislaus A. Bur (former priest - deceased)

· John E. Hammer (former priest)

· Richard L. Howard (former deacon)

· Jack J. Leipert (former priest)

· Leonard F. Wilkuski (former priest)

On Nov. 21, the diocese released the names of 13 more clergy the church alleges were credibly accused of sexually abusing children. Of those, 11 are dead, the earliest having died in 1959. The two living at the time of the announcement are Ronald V. Gronowski, 76, and Richard T. Szafranski, 70. Gronowski was permanently removed from public ministry in 2002, while Szafranski was removed in 2006.

Interim Bishop Hurley said he could not state how many victims were associated with those clergy or how long ago the alleged abuse may have happened.

Gaertner said prosecutors questioned why the diocese didn’t provide the additional names released in November months earlier.

“Where were these names last spring, when we asked? Were they buried in a file? Where were they? We asked for this and we didn’t get it,” Gaertner said.

Of the five clerics initially named, Leipert was investigated by police in 2000 in Bad Axe after a 21-year-old man claimed Leipert grabbed his penis as the younger man performed handyman work on the priest’s house. At the time, the then-54-year-old Leipert was the pastor of Sacred Heart Parish in Bad Axe.

Gaertner was the Huron County prosecutor at the time and declined to issue criminal charges against Leipert. In December 2000, he wrote a letter to the complainant stating that while there may be sufficient evidence to sustain an initial charge, he did not feel the prosecution would be able to meet its burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt.

Today, Gaertner said he stands by the decision he made with the then-Bad Axe Police Department chief not to charge Leipert.

“It was a ‘He said, he said’ (case) and we did not have electronic surveillance,” Gaertner said. “We did not have a prosecutable case.”

MLive/The Saginaw News was unable to locate Leipert to request comment from him.

Howard was convicted of sex crimes in Bay County. Howard, 44 at the time, was a deacon and religion teacher at Bay City All Saints High School when he was accused of molesting a 15-year-old boy. He was charged with two counts of second-degree criminal sexual conduct and one count of gross indecency between males.

He pleaded no contest to two counts of attempted second-degree criminal sexual conduct.

A judge in January 1989 sentenced Howard to six months in jail and five years of probation and ordered him to pay $1,500 in court fines and costs. Howard was discharged from probation in November 1993 and is not required to register as a sex offender.

MLive also was unable to find Howard to request comment.

The Saginaw Diocese in January 2006 removed Leipert and Hammer from its ministry. The next month, it defrocked Howard and Wilkuski. Bur retired from the ministry in 1983 and was suspended in 1992. Bur died in February 2009.

As state and Saginaw County investigators continue their work, Hurley said he is optimistic that relations are improving between the diocese and prosecutors.

“It’s extremely important that there be a cooperative relationship between the civil authorities and the church,” Hurley said.

Gaertner said Hurley has met with Saginaw County Prosecutor John McColgan. In the next week or so, Gaertner plans on meeting with Hurley himself, he said.

Today, Pham said the sex-abuse issue continues to impact the Saginaw Diocese and its members.

“Fewer people are attending Mass and it would be fair to state that this is, in part, due to the church sex abuse crisis,” Pham said.

Although other factors have also contributed, Hurley agreed the sex-abuse allegations have had an impact.

“There is no doubt that the sexual abuse crisis has affected, in a dramatic kind of way, the life of the church.”

The Michigan Attorney General’s Office has established two reporting mechanisms for those who may be victims or have information regarding alleged sexual misconduct. The first is a website at www.michigan.gov/CI, which allows for confidential reporting. The second is a hotline at 1-844-324-3374, which is in operation from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday.

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