Release of Documents Today by the Chicago Diocese Demonstrates Corporate Policy To Hide Abusers
San Diego, CA, January 21, 2014 -- Victim's rights attorney, Irwin Zalkin, was not surprised by the latest round of sex abuse documents released today by the Archdiocese of Chicago.
It should come as no surprise that the latest stacks of documents released by the Catholic Church in Chicago once again show the level to which the Church worked to cover up what was known about predator priests within its Archdiocese and elsewhere, said Irwin Zalkin of The Zalkin Law Firm. This is not a diocese by diocese problem. This cover-up has been the corporate policy from the very top for decades.
Zalkin stressed that the latest document release in Chicago cannot be looked at in isolation. He pointed out that the Church has been forced by the courts to release similar records in Los Angeles, San Diego, Boston, Portland, and elsewhere in recent years in response to court judgments supporting justice for hundreds of victims of priest sexual abuse. Similar cover-ups by the Church can be seen in on-going investigations in Australia, Ireland, and Great Britain and with the lack of information recently provided to the Church to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child.
As we have represented victims who have come forward during the last decade, we have found that the Catholic Church seems to have corporate practice of covering up the truth about its institutional knowledge of child predators within the ranks of its priests, said Zalkin. We have also seen this pattern of a corporate cover-up of abuse in many other organizations that should be protecting children, like the Boy Scouts, Ultra-Orthodox Jewish groups, and now we are learning of the same problem within the Jehovah's Witnesses, Zalkin continued.
Zalkin has been one of the leading attorneys nationally who has represented hundreds of Catholic sexual abuse victims in cases throughout the country. The Zalkin Law Firm currently has more than 10 pending cases against the Jehovah's Witnesses organization around the country and has settled in excess of 300 sexual abuse cases in the last 10 years.
Irwin Zalkin was one of the lead trial lawyers and part of the trial team against the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Los Angeles that led to a global settlement of $660,000,000 and was appointed Mediation Liaison Counsel and a lead negotiator by United States Magistrate Judge Leo S. Papas on behalf of over 144 victims of childhood sexual abuse against the Roman Catholic Bishop of San Diego leading to a settlement of nearly $200,000,000.
About The Zalkin Law Firm
With offices in San Diego and New York, The Zalkin Law Firm is one of the premier sexual abuse and personal injury law firms in the country. The firm’s lawyers have represented hundreds of survivors of childhood sexual abuse and achieved groundbreaking results in numerous high-profile clergy abuse cases across the United States.
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