California Abusive Priest Personnel Records Released Implementing 2007 Settlement

The San Francisco Examiner reports that after three years of litigation, a California judge on Friday issued an order releasing some 10,000 pages of personnel records relating to 48 Catholic priests in the San Diego diocese who were either convicted or credibly accused of sexual abuse or who were named in a civil suit.  The order (full text) in The Clergy Cases II, (CA Super. Ct., Oct. 22, 2010), grew out of a 2007 settlement by 144 plaintiffs with the diocese for some $200 million and an agreement that an independent judge would decide which personnel records would be made public. (See prior posting.) All of the documents released Friday are available at BishopAccountability.org. Attorneys are still seeking release of another 2000 pages of files.