Baltimore judge orders release of redacted investigation into Archdiocese of Baltimore sex abuse

A Baltimore judge has ordered the release of a redacted version of the grand jury investigation into a history of child sexual abuse within the Archdiocese of Baltimore.

Circuit Judge Robert Taylor Jr.’s order, signed Friday, said he will hear arguments later on whether to release the entire report at a later date.

Release of the redacted report is not imminent because the attorney general’s office must first make a list of those individuals who are affected by what is contained in the report and have it approved by the judge. The list must be presented to the judge before March 13.

“Keeping this report from the public is an injustice...The need for disclosure outweighs the need for secrecy,” Taylor wrote. “The only form of justice that may now be available is a public reckoning — a disclosure of the facts as fournd the Office of Attorney General and contained in this report.”

Investigators with the Maryland Attorney General’s Office completed the 456-page investigation and asked the courts in November for permission to release their findings to the public. They told the courts that they looked back 80 years and identified 158 priests within the archdiocese accused of the “sexual abuse” and “physical torture” of more than 600 victims.

The report marks the first time authorities have sought to document the extent of child sexual abuse within the Catholic church of Maryland. Investigators told the courts they found a history of “pervasive” sexual abuse by the priesthood, as well as a coverup and “complicit silence” by church leaders.

State law requires a judge approve the release of grand jury materials. Lawyers for the church, the state and survivors have sought to weigh in on whether the report should come out.

Taylor wrote in his order that the “hundreds of victims of clerical abuse over the years have suffered from decades of systemic abuse.” Efforts within the church to hide the abuse have ensured perpetrators will escape any form of formal criminal sanctions.

“The same can be said for the individuals who went to sometimes extraordinary lengths to protect abusers, bury accusations, and essentially enable the rape and torture of children and young adults for many years,” Taylor wrote.

Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown said his office is “pleased with the Court’s order today permitting the interim release of a redacted version” of the report. He said in a statement that his office would “move expeditiously to comply with the court’s order and prepare a redacted copy of the Report to be released upon review and approval by the court.”

Sexual abuse survivors reacted with relief and gratitude.

Linda Malat Tiburzi said she felt “a huge mixed bag of thoughts and emotions” to hear that the report would be released about five years after the attorney general’s office first began its investigation of the archdiocese.

”There have been tears. There has been anger. There is gratitude for the investigative team in the attorney general’s office for the amount of time they have spent on this,” said Tiburzi, who said she was brutally raped for years by a teacher at the Catholic Community Middle School in the 1970s.

”It’s surreal. Until I actually hold the report in my hands, I don’t believe the day is actually coming,” Tiburzi added. “But I’m grateful because it’s been a long damn time coming.”

Liz Murphy, a classmate of Tiburzi’s, said she was “grateful” the report would finally be made public.

”The less redactions the better,” Murphy said. “Justice is way overdue in this case.”

Murphy, whose testimony against her former teacher, John Merzbacher, led to him being sentenced to four life sentences for repeatedly raping her when she was in middle school, said the Catholic church had repeatedly failed to protect her and other child sexual abuse survivors.

”I’m grateful the state, at least today, is trying to make this public and achieve some justice for survivors,” Murphy said.

The archdiocese said it would not oppose the release and pointed to steps it had taken to correct its culture and support survivors of abuse. The archdiocese, however, also acknowledged that it is paying for the legal fees of 13 people who are named in the report but not accused of sexual abuse and do not want their names released.

These people, whose identities have not been disclosed, are represented by prominent attorneys Gregg Bernstein and William Murphy. With the request pending to release the report, Baltimore Circuit Judge Anthony Vittoria sealed the case in December. All arguments over the report have remained confidential.

It’s typical for judges to rotate assignments with the new year. Taylor was appointed to the bench in 2018, and he took over the case in January.

Meanwhile, more survivors have sought to join the proceedings and urge the court to release the report. Attorneys representing two groups of victims have filed motions to unseal the case and expedite the release of the report.

Former Assistant Attorney General Carrie Williams told the court that the report mentions 115 priests who were prosecuted for sex abuse or previously identified by the archdiocese as credibly accused. State investigators found an additional 43 priests who were accused, but have not been publicly identified, she wrote.

Thirty of the 43 priests have died, Williams wrote. That leaves 13 living priests who have not been previously accused of sexual abuse. Williams told the courts that the office has redacted those 13 names from the report.

“By doing so, the office has satisfied the only outstanding argument in support of non-disclosure,” she wrote.

In Pennsylvania, 11 previously unidentified priests accused of sexual abuse successfully argued to the state’s highest court that their names should be redacted from a similar report. The court agreed, finding the redactions necessary to protect their legal rights of due process.

Still, survivors in Maryland have expressed alarm at the notion that 13 living priests have been accused of sexual abuse and will remain hidden from the public.

The Maryland report is expected to resemble the bombshell 2018 investigation in Pennsylvania and span hundreds of pages with allegations of child sex abuse tracing back decades. Investigators told the courts they found that one congregation was assigned 11 sexually abusive priests in 40 years. The abuse was so pervasive that victims reported sexual abuse to priests who were abusers themselves, according to the court record.

The investigation began under former Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh, who retired at the end of last year. The legal argument to disclose the report has now been taken up by the office of Anthony Brown, the state’s new attorney general.

Over the years, repercussions of abuse in Baltimore have included the shooting of a priest by a former altar boy who said the priest had molested him nearly a decade earlier.

Today, the Archdiocese of Baltimore includes the city and Allegany, Anne Arundel, Baltimore, Carroll, Frederick, Garrett, Harford, Howard and Washington counties. The archdiocese has 153 parishes and missions and educates 24,000 children at its 40 elementary schools, 18 high schools and one early learning center. Protestants, however, outnumber Catholics in the state, according to the Pew Research Center.

Clergy abuse and coverups in Baltimore were the subject of a Netflix documentary series “The Keepers.” The show explores the theory that nun Cathy Cesnik was murdered in 1969 because she knew about rampant abuse by A. Joseph Maskell, a chaplain and counselor at the now-shuttered Archbishop Keough High School during the 1960s and 1970s. Multiple people have accused Maskell, now dead, of sexual abuse.

tim.prudente@thebaltimorebanner.com

This story was republished with permission from The Baltimore Banner. Visit www.thebaltimorebanner.com for more.