GIULIANI still defending alleged PEDOPHILE PRIEST

Giuliani Defends, Employs Priest Accused of Molesting Teens

By BRIAN ROSS and AVNI PATEL

http://www.abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=3753385&page=1

ABC NEWS Oct. 23, 2007-

Presidential candidate Rudolph Giuliani hired a Catholic priest to

work in his consulting firm months after the priest was accused of

sexually molesting two former students and an altar boy and told by

the church to stop performing his priestly duties.

The priest, Monsignor Alan Placa, a longtime friend of Giuliani and

the priest who officiated at his second wedding to Donna Hanover,

continues to work at Giuliani Partners in New York, to the outrage of

some of his accusers and victims' groups, which have begun to protest

at Giuliani campaign events.

"This man did unjust things, and he's being protected and employed and

taken care of. It's not a good thing," said one of the accusers,

Richard Tollner, who says Placa molested him repeatedly when he was a

student at a Long Island, N.Y. Catholic boys high school in 1975.

At a campaign appearance in Milwaukee last week, Giuliani continued to

defend Placa, who he described to reporters as a close friend for 39

years.

"I know the man; I know who he is, so I support him," Giuliani said.

"We give some of the worst people in our society the presumption of

innocence and benefit of the doubt," he said. "And, of course, I'm

going to give that to one of my closest friends."

[so under a Giuliani presidency we would probably see Supreme Court Justices

and other appointees of similar stripe as Placa!]

The accusations against Placa were made in testimony before a Suffolk

County grand jury in 2002.

Tollner, now a mortgage broker in Albany, N.Y., says he was one of

three people to testify about Placa.

"This man harmed children. He still could do it. He deserves to be

shown for what he was, or is," says Tollner.

Appearing publicly for the first time today on ABC News' "Good Morning

America," Tollner says the abuse started when he and Placa were in the

high school making posters for a Right to Life march.

"As he started to explain how these posters should be done, I realized

that something was rubbing my body," Tollner said. "After a minute or

two, I realized that he's feeling me, feeling me in my genital area."

The grand jury report concluded that a Priest F, who Tollner says is

Placa, abused the boys sexually "again and again and again."

"Priest F was cautious, but relentless in his pursuit of victims. He

fondled boys over their clothes, usually in his office," the report

said.

The report concluded that Priest F, and several other priests under

investigation from the same Long Island, N.Y. diocese, could not be

prosecuted because the statute of limitations had expired.

Several former students from the same high school say they were asked

by the "Giuliani organization" to contact ABC News and vouch for

Placa.

"There was absolutely not a hint of rumor of a speculation or a

whisper, in four years, or in decades after of any sexual

predatoriness on the part of Rev. Placa," wrote Matthew Hogan in an

e-mail to ABCNews.com.

[untrue - see documentation below]

Hogan says he recalls that Placa did give "special attention" to his

former schoolmate Richard Tollner and remembers seeing Tollner in

Placa's office "laughing, on opposite sides of a desk with Mr. Tollner

happily animated sitting up on the couch talking."

But Hogan says the school area where Tollner says he was molested "was

CONSTANTLY trafficked even on off days and hours."

"I will gladly help take apart in public anything that seriously

overlooks the above. I'll be watching The Blotter like a hawk," Hogan

wrote.

In addition to the allegations that Priest F was personally involved

in the sexual abuse, the grand jury also said that Priest F became

instrumental in a church policy that used "deception and intimidation"

to keep the church scandal quiet.

Placa served as a lawyer for the diocese in dealing with allegations

of abuse against other priests and, according to the grand jury

report, claimed he had saved the church hundreds of thousands of

dollars in his handling of possible litigation.

Lawyers for alleged victims say Placa would often conduct interviews,

in his priest garb, without making it clear he was the church lawyer.

"He was a wolf in sheep's clothing," said Melanie Little, a lawyer for

several alleged victims of sexual abuse by other priests in the

diocese.

"He was more concerned with protecting the priests, protecting the

reputation of the diocese and protecting the church coffers than he

was protecting the children," said Little.

Since going to work for Giuliani Partners, the former mayor and the

priest have continued to be close.

Placa accompanied Giuliani and his wife Judith on a trip to Rome

earlier this year.

Through a spokeswoman at Giuliani Partners, Sunny Mindel, Placa

declined requests to comment on the allegations to ABCNews.com.

Mindel also declined to specify what Placa does for the firm or how

much he is paid.

"Mr. Giuliani can do what he wants with his money, but he has to pay

the price for people like myself who disagree with employing known

child molesters," Tollner said.

While no longer allowed to perform priestly duties or appear in public

as a priest, Placa continues to maintain a residence at a church

rectory in Great Neck on New York's Long Island.

According to New York property records, Placa also co-owns, with

another priest, a waterfront apartment in lower Manhattan in Battery

Park City, valued at more than $500,000.

Copyright © 2007 ABC News Internet Ventures

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Rudy Giuliani and Alan Placa: "Mayor Morality" and the PEDOPHILE PRIESTS

References:

http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2007/03/rudy_giuliani_w.html

http://www.townhall.com/blog/g/432306c2-20b7-4fb5-bb5a-008d54eaf343

http://trustme.com/story.php?title=Rudy-Giuliani--pedo-priest

http://www.bishop-accountability.org/

http://littlemissattila.mu.nu/archives/giuliani_in_drag.jpg

http://bottleofblog.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/guilianidrag.jpg

With the above references you can read in depth about priestly pedophilia

and its ties to a rather hypocritical Presidential candidate. Giuliani's

close association with and promotion of criminal cop Kerik is a better known

issue, as are his adultery and family estrangements, but these are less

deeply indicative of Giuliani's moral bankruptcy than his relatively unknown

Placa connection.

Alan Placa and Rudy Giuliani were high school buddies, and they remained

close friends through College. Post-college, Placa went to the Seminary, and

Giuliani to law school. After he was ordained, Placa attended law school

too. Eventually he became a Monsignor in the Diocese of Rockville Center on

Long Island, and Giuliani went to Washington in Reagan's Department of

Justice. When Giuliani wanted an annulment of his first marriage - to a 2nd

cousin, a union normally frowned upon by the Catholic Church, Placa did the

job - after being best man at their wedding!

Monsignor Placa got into considerable trouble in the late 1990s when accused

of sexually abusing two minors that could not sue him or the Diocese because

the five-year statute of limitations was long past. When the story broke

Monsignor Placa came up in several parts of it. While serving on Long Island

he had developed a legal strategy for dealing with sex abuse complaints.

This involved having an "intervention team" meet with family members and the

abused, without revealing that Placa was indeed the Diocese lawyer on such

matters. Placa took great pride that in cases that if litigated might cost

the Diocese millions, he could frequently manipulate the situation and get

them off for a few thousand. Of course the Monsignor was flying a false

flag - he was not a spiritual counsel, he was the Bishop's lawyer. He

traveled the country teaching Bishops this evasion technique, with about 200

successful cases outside his own Diocese.

In the 1980s, the preferred method of dealing with Priestly Pedophilia was

to send the black-collared child molesters off for "therapy." There were

several institutions available, one being a huge fraud called the House of

Affirmation run by a Father Thomas A. Kane. Kane lied about his degrees in

psychology, but that was only found out later. In the meantime he acquired

lots of high-grade real estate, and when he was about to go under, he

transferred to Placa titles for property in Massachusetts and Florida, among

other assets. The transfers were not discovered for years.

When this story was all over the papers in 2002, Suffolk County Long Island

had a Grand Jury review the situation with the Rockville Center Diocese, and

while they could not charge Placa because of the statute of limitations,

they issued a report about his "intervention team" manipulating victims and

their families, and the allegations of his abuse of two teens. As a result

Monsignor Placa was suspended from the priesthood and essentially defrocked.

He was allowed to say one public Mass however - at Giuliani's Mother's

funeral, causing the event to be picketed by sex abuse victims! When the

Grand Jury was trying to serve Placa with a subpoena, Giuliani hid him until

the term was out - a probable obstruction of justice by former U.S. Attorney

Giuliani.

Placa is today an extremely close Giuliani friend and associate, despite

being credibly accused of sexual molestation and, perhaps worse, using the

system to cover up his and other abuse cases. The story goes back to a 2002

Newsday article about a January 1975 day when a teenager, Richard Tollner,

volunteered to help make banners for the annual Right to Life march in

Washington. According to the story, the student claims Monsignor Placa

pulled out some posters in the deserted administrative area as if to show

him something, and then began fondling him - all the while making

conversation about the posters.

Tollner said the incidents were repeated every month or so for the next year

and a half. "It was always groping," he said. "He'd draw his hand

deliberately to the inside of my thigh, and over my penis. It would go on

for four or five minutes, sometimes as long as ten."

Placa denies any wrongdoing and has never been formally charged with a

crime. But it is also true that the Diocese of Rockville Center has removed

him from wearing the collar and performing official duties.

"There's ample evidence showing that Placa consistently protected predators,

shrewdly deceived victims, and covered up horrific clergy sex crimes," said

a statement from David Clohessy, national director of the Survivors Network

of those Abused by Priests. SNAP also contends that Placa abused children.

It should also be noted that a Grand Jury report paints a devastating

picture of sexual deviancy and criminality in his Rockville Center Diocese.

According to the National Catholic Reporter:

"The report documents allegations of the rape of cheerleaders and altar

boys, of acts of molestation and seductions in churches, rectories, on

camping trips, and in the homes of the minors who were abused. It tells of

instances in which priests provided minors with pornography and alcohol, and

of cases in which the Diocese received allegations but didn't report them to

the police, but instead transferred the accused priests to other parishes."

In the Suffolk County Supreme Court Grand Jury report, Placa, by his own

admission, is referred to as "Priest F," a priest who engaged in pedophilia.

Even after the grand jury testimony, Giuliani stood by him. In another 2003

New York Times article, Placa described the zero-tolerance sex abuse policy

on priests as "immoral and unchristian." Apparently, in Placa's mind, Christ

condoned such perversions. Judging by his loyalty and support, Presidential

candidate Giuliani, proven transvestite and adulterer, does likewise.

Additionally, the 2002 Newsday story included a quote from Kevin Waldron, a

fellow high school friend who corroborates sex abuse victim Tollner's story,

saying Tollner told him of the events after they happened. The Newsday story

goes on to report:

"A second former student, who asked that his name be withheld, said he

described to Suffolk prosecutors what he called 'the newspaper drill.' 'He

(Placa) always had a New York Times in his office. And he'd sit down next to

you on the couch and open it wide and, inevitably, his hand would brush your

crotch.' 'He did it over and over again, I can't tell you how many times.'

That man said he felt so violated that he wrote Placa an unsigned letter 20

years later, blaming him for his loss of interest in pursuing the

priesthood."

Despite all these allegations, Giuliani hired Placa right after all this

went down, and based on news reports and a call to the Giuliani Partners

office, he remains with him today. And as the New York Times reported in

2002, even amid these strong allegations Giuliani jumped to Placa's defense

saying: "He's one of the people I admire most in the world, and if most

people did half the good that Alan's done, the world would be a wonderful

place." Yes, in Giuliani's world, and in America under his Presidency, child

molesters would run free to prey upon minors, they would protect each other

through religious organizations, and criminals would head police departments

and the Department of Homeland Security. And thus, under Giuliani's rule,

"the world would be a wonderful place."

Every bit of this has been reported over the years in Newsday, the NY Times,

and in books by Jason Berry. You can find the articles, as well as the Grand

Jury report, archived at http://www.bishop-accountability.org/. The Times

front-paged it when Giuliani hired Placa for his consulting firm.

So why did Giuliani defend and hire the unsavory Alan Placa? Is this his

version of Affirmative Action? We know he recommended his buddy, criminal

cop Kerik, to George W. Bush for heading up Homeland Security. And two-faced

Giuliani, the closet neo-con, is now flip-flopping on the abortion issue,

among others. He tries to curry favor with pro-choice advocates but as

President would probably sabotage women's rights through judicial appointees

that would overturn Roe vs. Wade. If Giuliani is elected we could well see

pedophile priest-lawyers that oppose abortion on "moral grounds" sitting on

the Supreme Court!

And why the lack of media attention to all this today? Suppose John Edwards,

Barack Obama, or Hillary Clinton had given a cozy sinecure to a defrocked

priest credibly accused of pedophilia. What would occur? I'll tell you

what - every newspaper reader, every radio listener, and every television

news watcher in America would be discussing the matter the very next day.

But I'll bet you're learning for the first time right here about Giuliani's

de facto defense of child abuse and staunch support of his probable

pedophile priestly pal.

Aside from his moral issues, do we want a President of the United States

whose definition of freedom is:

" - FREEDOM IS NOT A CONCEPT IN WHICH PEOPLE CAN DO ANYTHING

THEY WANT, BE ANYTHING THEY CAN BE. FREEDOM IS ABOUT AUTHORITY.

FREEDOM IS ABOUT THE WILLINGNESS OF EVERY SINGLE HUMAN BEING

TO CEDE TO LAWFUL AUTHORITY A GREAT DEAL OF DISCRETION ABOUT

WHAT YOU DO AND HOW YOU DO IT."

- Mayor Giuliani, quoted in the New York Times, March 17, 1994.