Giuliani's loyalty to an accused priest

When a molestation scandal erupted in the Catholic Archdiocese of Boston in early 2002, it spilled over into Long Island. The newly installed bishop, William Murphy, had been the No. 2 official in Boston from 1993 to 2001. He had helped arrange early retirement for the most notorious of the abusive priests, Father John Geoghan. After Geoghan was sentenced to prison for molestation in February 2002, the archdiocese revealed that it had settled 100 civil suits on Geoghan's behalf, and also gave law enforcement the names of 90 priests accused of abuse. Responding to public outcry, officials on Long Island subpoenaed the records of the Rockville Centre Diocese, and Bishop Murphy turned over internal files on accused priests to law enforcement in both Nassau and Suffolk counties in March 2002.

In Nassau County, the district attorney concluded that the statute of limitations had expired on all reported incidents and stopped investigating. Suffolk County convened a special grand jury to investigate specific allegations of abuse and how the diocese had dealt with them. The jury heard from 97 witnesses over nine months, and uncovered "deception and intimidation" by those diocesan officials who were supposed to be fielding sexual abuse complaints from parishioners. "The evidence before the grand jury," stated the report, "clearly demonstrates that diocesan officials agreed to engage in conduct that resulted in the prevention, hindrance and delay in the discovery of criminal conduct by priests."

None of the diocesan officials or accused priests are cited in the grand jury's final report by name; the report instead identifies 23 priests by letter, and identifies diocesan officials by the duties they performed. Ultimately, the grand jury determined that "priests working in the Diocese of Rockville Centre committed criminal acts ... These criminal acts included, but were not limited to, Rape, Sodomy, Sexual Abuse, Endangering the Welfare of a Child and Use of a Child in a Sexual Performance." Because the alleged criminal acts had occurred more than five years ago, however, the statute of limitations meant no charges could be filed against any of the accused.

Suffolk County District Attorney Thomas Spota would not confirm to the Long Island newspaper Newsday at the time of the report's release in February 2003 that Priest F was Alan Placa. Spota would say, however, that "this is a person who was directly involved in the so-called policy of the church to protect children, when in fact he was one of the abusers." Multiple media outlets have named Placa as Priest F. Placa implicitly acknowledged as much to the New York Times in a Feb. 20, 2003, story, titled "L.I. Monsignor Scorns Jury, Insisting He Is No 'Monster'," in which he denied the specific allegations in the report. One of the victims whose testimony is cited in the report has also confirmed to Salon that Placa is Priest F.

By the time of the report's release, Placa was no longer an active priest. In April 2002, shortly before the grand jury's impaneling, Placa stepped down as vice chancellor and went on sabbatical. The diocese announced that he would be assigned to a parish as a priest after the sabbatical. By then, several families had spoken to media outlets and described their interaction with Monsignor Placa and complained about how he had handled their allegations of abuse. (Placa would later tell a reporter that while he was a member of the three-person diocesan team he did not report allegations of abuse to law enforcement.) But the sabbatical also came a week after Newsday contacted Placa and informed him that accusers had come forward to say he had molested them.

Several months later, Placa's sabbatical turned into a suspension. On June 3, 2002, Newsday published a story on the alleged victims who had accused Placa of abusing them in the 1970s. One of the accusers was Richard Tollner. On June 13, 2002, the day the Nassau County District Attorney's Office contacted the diocese regarding the accusations against Placa, Bishop Murphy stripped Placa of his right to perform priestly duties like giving communion and officiating at weddings and funerals, and placed him on administrative leave.

The Suffolk County grand jury report, released eight months after Placa's suspension, includes evidence from three alleged victims. It states that in Priest F's first assignment, "he appears to have made feeble attempts at abusing a boy who was an alter [sic] server. ... He pulled up a chair next to the boy and put his right hand on his thigh. Slowly his hand began to creep up towards the boy's genital area. Alarmed, the boy covered his crotch. b

"After his first assignment," the report continues, "Priest F was transferred within the Diocese to ... a school. Priest F was cautious, but relentless in his pursuit of victims. He fondled boys over their clothes, usually in his office. Always, his actions were hidden by a poster, newspaper or a book. ... Everyone in the school knew to stay away from Priest F."

The report describes two alleged victims complaining to the school's rector about Priest F, and their "suspicions, later confirmed to be correct," that the priest was abusing a fourth boy. Eventually, one of the alleged victims told Priest F, in an encounter witnessed by another boy, "Don't ever fucking touch me again or I'll kill you."

When one of the victims attempted to report the alleged abuse, "the response I had gotten from my family, from my parents specifically was, that's impossible ... Priests just don't do these things. You must be mistaken."

The report also included memos apparently written by Placa in his capacity as sex abuse investigator for the diocese. In a document from June 1993, he asked colleagues, "Please do not identify me as an attorney [to complainants.]" Another spoke of how Rockville Centre's handling of abuse claims had resulted in the "lowest ratio of losses to assets of any diocese. ... Our system is in place and working well." In a letter, Placa spoke of "[giving] some of my time to helping other bishops and religious congregations with delicate legal problems involving the misconduct of priests. ... In the past 10 years, I have been involved in more than two hundred such cases in various parts of the country." While investigating sexual abuse claims against priests for the Diocese of Rockville Centre, he also served as counsel to the House of Affirmation, a mental-health facility for priests in Worcester, Mass. Patients included priests accused of sexual abuse.

Next page: "If someone's on leave for five years, it's a little unusual"