The complicated road to restitution for clergy abuse victims

• Emily Previti/PA Post
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  Emily is a reporter for WITF who’s been covering voting and elections since July 2019 as part of her former role with statehouse accountability news organization PA Post. She was the senior reporter for statewide public media collaboration Keystone Crossroads. Previously, she covered city hall for PennLive/The Patriot-News (Harrisburg, Pa.), was a watchdog and city hall reporter at The Press of Atlantic City and reported for the Northwest Herald. She is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania.
  
  See other articles by Emily Previti for WITF.

 Brett Sholtis / WITF

Patrick Duggan leaves the podium after talking to reporters at the Capitol rotunda Thurs., Oct. 10, 2019. Duggan says he was sexually abused by his history teacher at St. Francis of Assisi Catholic School in Harrisburg in the mid-to late 1970s, when Duggan was a teenager. At left is his attorney, Richard Serbin.

‘Out of charitable concern for your welfare’

Brett Sholtis / WITF

Patrick Duggan leaves the podium after talking to reporters at the Capitol rotunda Thurs., Oct. 10, 2019. Duggan says he was sexually abused by his history teacher at St. Francis of Assisi Catholic School in Harrisburg in the mid-to late 1970s, when Duggan was a teenager. At left is his attorney, Richard Serbin. (Brett Sholtis / WITF)

• Seven of eight catholic diocese in Pennsylvania (all but Altoona-Johnstown) established victim compensation funds in the wake of last year’s scathing grand jury report detailing the decades-long coverup of sexual abuse of children by clergy. Just after the deadline for filing claims, Keystone Crossroads reporter Laura Bensoff talked with two victims for this story. One has been receiving money since the 1990s after he confronted the Philadelphia Archdiocese — where church officials made no admissions or apologies but told him “these funds are provided out of charitable concern for your welfare.”

• Nearly 370 people are pursuing claims involving the Pittsburgh Diocese. Lawyers for the church say they’ve processed 50 so far and all were verified. The church review entails sifting through back-up documents from claimants, such as “medical notes from therapy sessions, … correspondence or communications with law enforcement, or the Diocese, or relatives,” one attorney told WESA’s Kathleen Davis. Kathlen’s story is here.

• Church officials in Allentown, with just over 300 claims filed,  have said they fear severe financial hardship from compensating victims. “But public records show the diocese has left one of its largest collective assets — more than $323 million of property it controls in Lehigh and Northampton counties — largely intact, The Morning Call’s Emily Opolio reports in this story.

• Meanwhile, the Harrisburg Diocese just got slapped with a separate lawsuit alleging the church turned a blind eye while a teacher drugged and raped a student. WITF’s Brett Sholtis has the story.

• Tamaqua Area School District Board President Larry Wittig has been barred from participating in any level of Olympic sport for sleeping with student-athletes while he was coaching high school and college rowing during the 1980s. Wittig told The Morning Call he’s appealing the Sept. 27 decision to bar him from Olympic sports. The determination marked the end of investigation begun after The Philadelphia Inquirer first reported on Wittig’s sexual misconduct in 2017. That story also led Wittig to resign his seat at the head of the state BOE — but he stayed on at the helm in Tamaqua.

Best of the rest

Katie Meyer / WITF

Supporters of Marsy’s Law held signs in protest during the ACLU’s press conference announcing its lawsuit. (Katie Meyer / WITF)

• Pennsylvania voters will see a proposed constitutional amendment on the ballot this November, unless a lawsuit filed Thursday is successful in removing it. Marsy’s Law would insert a bill of rights for crime victims in Pennsylvania’s constitution. The ACLU thinks it’s too sweeping and would need to be broken into parts. Here’s the story from WITF’s Katie Meyer.

• Dauphin County Chief Public Defender Bradley Winnick has been indicted on theft of services, conflict of interest and other charges linked to his alleged misappropriation of taxpayer money. Winnick gave employees comp time worth $26,000, total, to work the polls during elections in 2017, investigators claim. His defense attorney told PennLive’s Matt Miller that in “his zeal to help extraordinary candidates, [Winnick] committed a huge error in judgment,” and for “not any personal, financial benefit.” Matt’s other story about Winnick’s case is here.

• Erie County voters prefer three frontrunners for the Democratic presidential nomination over incumbent Donald Trump, according to a recent poll. Respondents picked Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders given the choice between each of them and President Trump. They chose Trump over other Democrats — but not by much. The full report out of the poll by Mercyhurst University is here.

• StateImpact Pennsylvania and SmartTalk will explore the roots of some of Pa.’s most pressing environmental problems later this month with a panel featuring state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources Secretary Cindy Adams Dunn and Rob Altenburg, Director of the PennFuture Energy Center. The discussion will follow a preview screening of Retro Report PBS, a new show that delves into the history behind the headlines. Information and RSVP details about the free event are here.