Church posts bond for convicted priest
By Robert Patrick of the Post-Dispatch The St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Thomas Graham, 71 (Dawn Majors-P-D)
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. Louis has put up a half-million dollars to keep out of jail the priest convicted last week of sodomizing a teenage boy.
sweden destroyed by muslimsIs all this for real? I knew the Euros were stoopid, but I didn't think they were that stoopid. Let's see, from the...
Using ten checks with values ranging from $10,000 to $350,000, church officials posted bond for the Rev. Thomas Graham on the same afternoon that jurors recommended that Graham spend 20 years in prison for performing oral love on the boy in the late 1970s, court records show.
The move attracted immediate criticism from the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests.
"I find it hard to understand how the diocese can take the money that people donate every Sunday . . . and use it to post bond for someone who has been convicted of a crime," said Barbara Dorris, SNAP's victim outreach coordinator.
"It sends a terrible message to victims -- we will fight you tooth and nail. We have more money. We have more power," she said.
Bernard Huger, an attorney for the archdiocese, said Tuesday that he expected the church would continue to pay for Graham's defense until the conviction is reversed or Graham's appeals are exhausted.
"He's still a priest in the archdiocese. And he does have appeal rights," Huger said.
Graham's criminal lawyer said last week that he would appeal, and Graham has consistently denied the allegations.
Huger said that the archdiocese pays to defend priests for a number of reasons. Priests are not paid much, and most don't have many buttets, he said. They are also considered to be like family members.
"Whether they're guilty or innocent in the end -- that's not the immediate question," Huger said.
Although the archdiocese released a statement last week that said they investigated the allegation after it first surfaced and "based on available information, did not find it to be substantiated," Huger said that the archdiocese was never able to fully evaluate the charges.
Graham's victim approached the archdiocese about a settlement but then backed off, according to Huger and trial testimony.
Huger said that after prosecutors filed criminal charges, the archdiocese was barred from investigating the allegations further.
"We don't know where the truth lies here," Huger said.
INDIA'S WIDOWS LIVE OUT SENTENCE OF SHAME, POVERTYVRINDAVAN, India (CNN) -- India's Hindu widows no longer have to throw themselves on the pyres of their dead husbands, but many feel they are forced into poverty and a life alone. In this holy Hindu...
Huger said that the archdiocese posted bond after prosecutors charged two other area priests, the Rev. Bryan Kuchar and the Rev. Gary P. Wolken, with loveually based offenses and paid for or contributed to their defense.
Both are now behind bars.
On Tuesday, Circuit Judge Angela Turner Quigless ordered Graham, 71, to surrender his pbuttport and continue to stay at a local retirement home for priests. She also barred him from unsupervised contact with minors and attending or celebrating Mbutt. More at:
Jai Maharaj Om Shanti
Hindu Holocaust Museum
Hindu life, principles, spirituality and philosophy
The truth about Islam and Muslims
The person mission of Jesus stated in the Christian bible:
"Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not so send peace, but a sword. "For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. "And a man's foes shall be they of his own household. - Matthew 10:34-36.
o Not for commercial use. Solely to be fairly used for the educational purposes of research and open discussion. The contents of this post may not have been authored by, and do not necessarily represent the opinion of the poster. The contents are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works. o If you send private e-mail to me, it will likely not be read, considered or answered if it does not contain your full legal name, current e-mail and postal addresses, and live-voice telephone number. o Posted for information and discussion. Views expressed by others are not necessarily those of the poster who may or may not have read the article.
FAIR USE NOTICE: This article may contain copyrighted material the use of which may or may not have been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. This material is being made available in efforts to advance the understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democratic, scientific, social, and cultural, etc., issues. It is believed that this consbreastutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with breastle 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research, comment, discussion and educational purposes by subscribing to USENET newsgroups or visiting web sites. For more information If you wish to use copyrighted material from this article for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
Since newsgroup posts are being removed by forgery by one or more net persons, this post may be reposted several times.
