Article: He fought Goliath to get discovery on sex crimes in the Catholic Church

“They were going to try every trick in the book and create new books for new tricks. Their strategy was to prevent the sordid history from coming out.” -- DeMarco

(The plaintiff liaison attorney in the LA Clergy Cases had a few minutes to talk last Friday about upcoming jury trials with the Salesians and some reflections on fighting Goliath to bring out sex crimes in the Catholic Church. Here's the interview:)

IS THERE SOME KIND OF GOLDEN PARAGRAPH THAT DESCRIBES THE ENTIRE SETTLEMENT?

DEMARCO: Not yet. It’s close. The documentation is very, very close.

IS THERE A STATEMENT IN THE SETTLEMENT THAT STATES RELEASE OF PERSONNEL FILES AND OTHER DOCUMENTS IS PART OF THE SETTLEMENT --

DEMARCO: It will be in the settlement agreement, yes. It’s being drafted.

DO YOU THINK THE CHURCH WILL TRY TO GET OUT OF RELEASING FILES AND OTHER DOCUMENTS?

DEMARCO: They're creative. They don’t like seeing the stuff come out, so they'll try to find a way, but we've got a process put in place and here in LA we've got judges who see the need for making this information known to the public.

THESE CASES MUST HAVE WREAKED HAVOC WITH YOUR HOME LIFE.

DEMARCO: This is something I put my heart and soul into. I think it -- I hope it showed. I think the clients appreciated it and saw it. You know, it wasn’t hard going to sleep at night knowing whether or not I was on the side of right or wrong.

But with that comes a great responsibility and that weighed real heavy for the last five years. So it’s nice to see this coming to a conclusion in some respects.

WERE YOU SHOCKED AT THE WAY THE CHURCH FOUGHT BACK?

No, I mean -- it -- I came to expect it. That they were going to try every trick in the book and create new books for new tricks. I mean they just -- they fight everything. You know, and early on I was shocked and then as time went on you just try to figure a way to get what you need, even with all the things that they're doing.

DO YOU THINK THEY EVER MADE A REALLY LEGITIMATE LEGAL ARGUMENT?

There were some legal arguments along the way that were closer than others but I think their overall strategy was to prevent as much of the information about the sordid history from coming out as they possibly could.

YOU KNOW I’M GOING TO USE THIS?

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