Attorney General Kathleen Kane, who announced the charges, was quoted as saying that the men “were more concerned about protecting the image of the order, more concerned with being in touch with lawyers than in protecting the flock they served”.
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Friars Robert D’Aversa, Anthony Criscitelli and Giles Schinelli are scheduled to surrender Friday on child endangerment and conspiracy charges.
In 2003, Baker’s order, the Franciscan Friars, Third Order Regulars of the Immaculate Conception Province, finalized a settlement with a man who said Baker abused him when he was an altar boy at St. Patrick’s. They’re accused of assigning or allowing Brother Stephen Baker to remain at Bishop McCort High School, where he molested scores of children from 1992 to 2000.
Baker later committed suicide, in 2013.
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In their supervisory role, said Kane, they assigned Brother Stephen Baker to Bishop McCort High School in Johnstown and elsewhere even though they knew he had been accused of sexually abusing children in the past.
Kane emphasized that you can still call the Attorney General’s hotline to report child sex abuse. Many of them say he molested them in the guise of giving therapeutic massage to prevent or treat sports injuries.
In that job, the grand jury found, he sexually offended three more children, Kane said.
In a statement, Bishop John Noonan of the Orlando Diocese said he supports the removal of the priests, adding “We pray for all the people involved in the investigation and for those who are suffering”. The Order added that it “extends its most honest apologies to the victims and to the communities who have been harmed”.
It was the investigation into Baker in April 2014 that initiated the broader grand jury investigation into the handling of abusive priests and allegations in the Altoona-Johnstown diocese.
Three Franciscan priests were charged with conspiracy for endangering the welfare of children as well as for endangering the welfare of children in connection with a two-year investigation into sexual abuse in the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown.
The grand jury found documentation that members say proved leaders of the T.O.R. on at least eight occasions transferred Franciscan Friars within their organization to other locations following sexual abuse allegations involving children, the grand jury found.
The pursuit of felony charges against Baker’s superiors reopened the wounds of the Catholic Church’s global sexual abuse scandal first disclosed as a systemic problem in Boston 14 years ago and captured recently in the Oscar-winning movie, “Spotlight”. He provided private physical therapy to student athletes despite having no known training in the area, and occasionally took them out to dinner.
D’Aversa succeeded Schinelli in 1994.
When Baker was removed by the order from Bishop McCort in 2000 following a credible allegation, D’Versa, provincial from 1994 to 2002, failed to notify the school of allegations or offer a reason for his reassignment, or to inform local law enforcement.
School officials told the grand jury they were not informed that Baker had been accused of abuse when he was hired to work at the school. D’Aversa later appointed Baker as vocations director of the T.O.R.
Criscitelli let Baker work in a shopping mall, again around children, prosecutors said.
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Messages left with a Bishop McCort High School spokesman and with Fathers Criscitelli in Minnesota and Schinelli in Florida were not immediately returned.
