Priest Sex Abuse Case Gets 2nd Look

Los Angeles County prosecutors have reopened a child-abuse investigation into a priest who was allowed to remain in ministry after admitting to Cardinal Roger M. Mahony that he had molested children, law enforcement sources and the boys’ attorney said.

An earlier criminal case against Michael Stephen Baker, 57, was dismissed in 2003 because of a U.S. Supreme Court decision barring prosecutions of decades-old sexual abuse cases. The new investigation involves two brothers who say they were molested more recently. The investigation had been stalled because the brothers now live in Mexico.

Last spring, however, Los Angeles prosecutors obtained U.S. visas so the brothers could be interviewed in Arizona, according to the brothers’ attorney and law enforcement sources. Investigators also interviewed Lynne M. Cadigan, the brothers’ Tucson-based civil attorney, who got a $1.3-million settlement on their behalf from Baker and the archdiocese, she said.

Baker told Mahony in 1986 that he had molested children, according to the archdiocese and Baker. The archbishop did not alert police, but rather sent Baker for treatment, after which he was assigned to a series of nine other parishes. Baker has been accused of sexually abusing 23 boys and girls from 1974 to 1999, including at least four after the priest admitted his molestations to Mahony, the archdiocese has reported. Mahony removed Baker from ministry in 2000, at the time of the confidential settlement, but didn’t notify police until 2003.

Mahony has expressed regret over the way he handled Baker, calling the case the one “that troubles me the most.” In a May 2002 letter to priests, Mahony apologized for failing “to take firm and decisive action much earlier.”

J. Michael Hennigan, church attorney, said the archdiocese isn’t proud of the Baker case. “It is a case that taught us painful lessons,” he said. The brothers’ 2000 complaint was the first direct allegation the church had ever received against Baker, Hennigan added.

Cadigan said Baker had said during the settlement talks that he molested the brothers.

Baker “confessed to me, then offered to settle the case and asked me just please, please don’t let Roger know,” Cadigan said in a phone interview Wednesday. “In my 23 years of handling sexual abuse claims, he was the first ever to admit directly to me about the incidents.”

Don Steier, Baker’s criminal attorney, said he was not surprised by the new investigation

“It’s unfortunate, but it comes as no surprise,” Steier said.

Bill Hodgman, head deputy district attorney, said Wednesday he could not comment.

Baker met with Mahony in December 1986 and told him he had molested two boys from 1978 to 1985, according to the archdiocese. Baker earlier told The Times that he did not provide specifics, and that Mahony did not press him for details.

Mahony sent Baker to a residential facility called Servants of the Paraclete in New Mexico, which then treated priests for sexual abuse and other problems. After Baker’s return to the Los Angeles Archdiocese, Mahony required the priest to attend counseling and placed him in positions where he was restricted from one-on-one contact with minors, the archdiocese said. Six of the 10 rectories where he was placed were next to elementary schools.

Baker violated his restrictions three times by being alone with minors but continued in ministry, according to summaries of church personnel files provided by the archdiocese.

The brothers, now in their mid-20s, have said in prior interviews with The Times that Baker began abusing them at St. Hilary Catholic Church in Pico Rivera in 1984 when they were 5 and 7 years old. The boys’ family moved to Mexico in 1986, but Baker over the next 13 years flew them to Los Angeles, Palm Springs and Arizona, where the abuse allegedly continued until 1999, at least once in the priest’s rectory. The allegations were the basis for the civil settlement.

The Times does not generally identify alleged victims of sexual abuse.

According to a lawsuit filed by the boys’ sister, who also claimed she was abused, Baker plied the brothers with “money, liquor and sexually oriented magazines” and “a book containing pictures of naked children.” The sister alleged that Baker began molesting her in 1984, when her mother started working at St. Hilary’s, and stopped in 1987. The suit, which has not been resolved, alleges that Baker threatened their mother’s livelihood if the children revealed the abuse.

In another unresolved lawsuit, filed in November 2003, a man identified only as John Doe 3 alleged that Baker molested him from 1989 to 1992 while he was a student at St. Elizabeth parish in Van Nuys.

Sources familiar with the current investigation said officials until late 2004 had struggled to make contact with the two brothers and only this year have managed extensive interviews with them. Neither brother has appeared before a grand jury, according to those sources.

The archdiocese paid $325,000 of the 2000 settlement, insurers paid $400,000 and Baker paid $500,000.

Archdiocese officials have said the Baker case showed that they should immediately remove priests targeted by credible sexual abuse allegations.