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.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Wednesday May 05, 2004 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 1 inches; 56 words Type of Material: Correction
Church settlement -- Articles in the California section on April 21 and Thursday about litigation against the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles involving sex abuse by clergy stated that an earlier case was settled for $5.2 million in 1999. That lawsuit against the Catholic Church in Los Angeles and Orange County was settled in 2001.
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."
