Church bid to move molestation trial out of L.A. denied

A judge on Tuesday denied a request to move a pending child-molestation trial hundreds of miles away, which the Archdiocese of Los Angeles had sought based on negative public sentiment toward the church in Southern California.

Church attorneys had made the request in a trial set for next week involving the acts of the Rev. Nicholas Aguilar-Rivera, a Mexican prelate who is accused of molesting more than 20 children during a nine-month stay in the L.A. diocese. They claimed the church could not receive a fair trial in the region, due to a “hostile” environment following the release of 12,000 pages of internal records.

Judge Emilie Elias told the attorneys they should attempt to pick an unbiased jury within the county, and if that appears impossible during questioning of potential jurors she would reconsider her ruling.

“I don’t think it’ll be an easy jury selection,” she said.

Elias also denied the church attorneys’ request to throw out the case on the grounds that the diocese could not have been on notice of Aguilar-Rivera’s abuse of children. J. Michael Hennigan, an attorney for the archdiocese, drew the outline of a church on a white board disputing a victim’s testimony that another priest could have seen the molestation occur in a back room behind the altar.

The archdiocese is facing lawsuits from 11 men who contend they were molested by the priest, who left the country in 1988 after serving in two parishes and remains at large in Mexico.

Elias said the 11 cases should go to trial at the same time, and tentatively proposed the beginning of 2014.

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