A prominent attorney who has brought forward numerous child sex abuse cases against the Catholic Church on Thursday called on the Archdiocese of New York to follow in the steps of other dioceses across the country and release the names of accused priests.
Standing alongside two women who said they were abused as children by men working under the Catholic Church, Jeff Anderson accused the Archdiocese head Cardinal Timothy Dolan of making a “conscious and calculated choice” to conceal the names of accused priests and others who worked under the jurisdiction of the diocese.
“Keeping this secret is dangerous,” Anderson said. “Not only does it fail to protect the kids from further harm, it also prevents the survivors of so many offenders of feeling that there is anything being done.”
Anderson released his own list of what he said was over 100 people who had worked under the New York Diocese and had been accused of sexual abuse. Four were individuals whose names had never been disclosed, he said.
In response to a request for comment, Joseph Zwilling, a spokesman for the Archdiocese of New York, said in an email that the names of clergy accused of abuse "have been shared with the district attorneys who serve the ten counties of the archdiocese, and they have now been shared with the Attorney General of the State of New York." He added that any new allegations of abuse are "immediately shared with the district attorney, so that they might determine if there is a prosecutable crime."
He said the parish community is notified about members of the archdiocese who are removed from an assignment following an accusation of abuse and that a story is published in Catholic New York, the archdiocesan newspaper. Furthermore, he said that "if the allegation is found to be substantiated by our review board, parishioners of the priest or deacon’s former assignments are also notified, always with a request that people contact their district attorney to report any criminal behavior, as well as our Independent Reconciliation and Compensation Program and Victims Assistance Coordinator so that we might also offer our support and help."
Anderson dismissed the archdiocese's statement as disingenuous, saying Dolan needs to issue a wholesale list to the public on its website or in a press release. He said names shared with law enforcement often do not result in prosecution because the statute of limitations has run out. Under the new Child Victims Act, which was passed last month, prosecutors can now bring criminal charges until a victim turns 28. Prior to that, victims had to be under 23. "Most have been hidden for so long," he told Gothamist. Releasing the names of old perpetrators is "an easy thing to do."
He added that the sporadic releases of names amount to no release at all.
The Catholic Church in New York State is made up of eight dioceses. Of them, only the dioceses of New York and Rockville Centre have not disclosed the names of accused priests, according to Anderson.
The Archdiocese of New York is the second largest diocese in the country after Los Angeles. It encompasses the boroughs of Manhattan, the Bronx and Staten Island as well as several counties in New York, including Dutchess and Westchester. Altogether, it serves around 2.8 million Catholics.
In recent months, amid a public reckoning and pressure from state and federal investigations, dozens of bishops across the country have been disclosing the names of priests who faced credible accusations. Just last Friday, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn named more than 100 priests, one of the largest disclosures to date. Prior to that, in September, the Brooklyn Diocese reached a $27.5 million settlement with four men who were repeatedly abused by a religious teacher at a Catholic church in Clinton Hill.
In a statement, the Most Rev. Nicholas DiMarzio, the bishop of Brooklyn, said, “For their suffering, I am truly sorry,” “I have met with many victims who have told me that more than anything, they want an acknowledgment of what was done to them. This list gives that recognition and I hope it will add another layer of healing for them on their journey toward wholeness.”
Anderson’s public shaming of Dolan comes one week after Governor Andrew Cuomo signed into law the Child Victims Act, which extends the state’s statutes of limitations for sex abuse victims. The Catholic Church, along with some other organizations, had vigorously fought the passage of the bill for years.
In September, Dolan announced the hiring of a former federal judge to investigate how the archdiocese was handing sexual abuse cases. Advocates for victims of abuse by clergy, however, were skeptical and considered the measure to be a P.R. stunt.
Anderson is representing clients who are now planning to sue the Catholic Church and other organizations in the wake of the new law, which allows victims to sue until age 55. One of them, Monica Perez-Jimenez, joined him at the press conference. In 2016, she spoke out against Louis Tambini, a history teacher and coach at the Loyola School, a small Catholic school on the Upper East Side which falls under the diocese’s jurisdiction.
“I was 14 and it was my first few weeks as a freshman in Loyola High School,” Perez-Jimenez said, recalling the incident on Thursday. She said Tambini had asked students to go look out the window as part of a study on Greek architecture. Boys were instructed to go to one window and the girls the other. Without going into further detail, she said, “He needed to be behind the girls.”
She later added: “There were things that were worse that happened to other girls.”
Tambini, who died in 1999, was accused of molesting at least seven girls at Loyola. He eventually left the school. But Tambini’s paid death notice, which was published in the New York Times, said he went on to work at the St. Bernard School, an all-boys school, for 15 years.
According to Mike Reck, an attorney at Jeff Anderson & Associates who also spoke at the press conference, Loyola had never revealed where Tambini had gone after he left the school.
“Did you warn the communities and the families at St. Bernard or did you keep that secret?” Reck asked rhetorically.
Tony Oroszlany, the president of Loyola School, issued the following statement to Gothamist:
When we were made aware of allegations of inappropriate conduct by a former teacher in 2016, we immediately opened an inquiry into the matter. Despite the passage of more than thirty years, we wanted to know what transpired then, and to make sure we have in place today a system that protects our students from inappropriate behavior.
From our inquiry, we learned that the individual in question — who passed away in 1999 — did indeed act aggressively and inappropriately on a number of occasions with students, and that he was dismissed from the faculty in 1983 because of his behavior.
In the many years since this indefensible behavior took place, we have made significant strides in our commitment to support appropriate professional boundaries within our community and have instituted a number of leading practices to protect our student body.
