Court Order Delays Mahony Deposition

The deposition of Cardinal Roger M. Mahony, scheduled for Thursday, was postponed Tuesday on procedural grounds, even as his lawyers prepared to ask for a delay based, in part, on security concerns.

Citing death threats against the cardinal, attorney J. Michael Hennigan said he had planned to ask a judge today to move Mahony’s scheduled deposition to his office or church property. Such a request would have delayed questioning by lawyers representing victims of alleged clergy sexual abuse.

Hennigan said the threats had occurred over the last year and were directed at Mahony’s role in the sex abuse scandal. But before he could make the request, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Charles W. “Tim” McCoy Jr. ordered as many as 94 sex abuse cases involving Roman Catholic priests in Northern California to be funneled to a single judge for trial. The ruling automatically halted all litigation, including discovery, in those cases.

Mahony was scheduled to testify under oath about a former priest he supervised two decades ago when he served as bishop of Stockton. He was subpoenaed as a witness in a civil lawsuit that is among the Northern California clergy cases coordinated Tuesday.

This would have been the cardinal’s second deposition in a priest sex abuse case since 1997, when Mahony gave sworn testimony in another negligence case involving the same ex-priest, Oliver Francis O’Grady. The priest was convicted of child molestation in 1994, spent six years in prison, and then was deported to his native Ireland.

A Stockton jury awarded O’Grady’s two victims $30 million, including $24 million in punitive damages against the diocese. Some jurors said they believed Mahony’s testimony to be untruthful. He told The Times in 2002 that he believed the jury verdict, which was later reduced to $7 million, was wrong.

Since then, the Los Angeles Archdiocese has been sued by more than 500 people who allege they were sexually abused by Catholic priests as children.

Mahony has not been subpoenaed in any of those cases because the lawyers suing the church in Southern California are under a similar court order that halted such action while settlement talks, begun last year, continue.

Attorney John Manly, who subpoenaed the cardinal, said he was not surprised by the delay.

“I’m disappointed,” he said. “They will do anything or say anything to stop the questioning about what he knew and when he knew it.”

“This man thinks he’s above the law. He’s not,” Manly said. “He may be able to get special privileges for himself in Vatican City, but this is California.”

This is the second time Manly has come within days of deposing Mahony in a sex abuse case. In 1999, the dioceses of Los Angeles and Orange settled another case for a record $5.2 million, making Mahony’s testimony unnecessary.

Mahony had been scheduled to be deposed this week at Manly’s Costa Mesa law office, but Hennigan objected. He wanted to move the proceedings to his downtown Los Angeles law office, a conference center at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels or the archdiocese’s administrative offices in Mid-Wilshire.

Hennigan also wanted the location kept secret from the media for the cardinal’s protection. “We have legitimate concerns for his safety,” he said. “We want to go to a location where we can control access.”

Hennigan also asked that Mahony’s deposition not be made public.

“We’re not interested in turning the litigation process into a media circus,” he said.

Hennigan was skeptical about the motivation behind the depositions. He said the abuse alleged in the lead case ended before Mahony became Stockton bishop in 1980, and was wary of “questions asked for the purpose of generating publicity.”

At the request of Mahony’s lawyer, the deposition also involves six other cases accusing the diocese of negligence for allowing O’Grady to remain in the priesthood after evidence surfaced that he was a child molester. At least one victim alleges that the sexual abuse took place while Mahony was bishop.

Mahony is one of only two cardinals in the United States to be deposed in a sex-abuse case. The other, Cardinal Bernard F. Law, was forced to resign as archbishop of Boston after transcripts of his deposition were made public by the court.

Although Catholic bishops, including Mahony, have pledged to act with “transparency” in the handling of priest sex-abuse cases, Hennigan said that had not affected his request to bar media from the proceedings and from reviewing the transcripts.

“I don’t think it applies to courtroom proceedings,” he said.