Victim’s mother decries secrecy in case of priest

Erica D. Johnson

Thursday, Dec. 4, 2003 | 9:47 a.m.

The mother of one of the teen boys abused by a Catholic priest says the public deserves to know where the priest will serve out his three years' probation.

District Judge Donald Mosley on Wednesday said Mark Roberts had 60 days to relocate to a treatment center outside of Nevada but did not specify where the center was located.

Chief Deputy District Attorney Doug Herndon, who handled the case, said he and Mosley had agreed before the hearing not to disclose the location of the treatment center.

"We don't think it's necessarily in the best interest of the people involved that (the location) be made public," he said.

Herndon said Roberts, 52, would be living with his sister in the Las Vegas Valley and would be under intensive supervision by local Department of Parole and Probation officials until his transfer.

But Debbie Tullgren, the mother of one of Roberts' victims, said the public deserves to know where the convicted sex offender will be housed.

"I'd like some clarification on why they think the public doesn't have a right to know," she said.

Tullgren has said that she and members of Survivors Network for those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, would publicize the location of the treatment center if they found out. She said people in the area of the new facility should also be made aware of Roberts' history.

Roberts was slated to be housed at a Missouri treatment center earlier this year, but Tullgren and other members of the support group protested the move, saying one of Roberts' victims lived nearby.

Officials in that state ultimately refused to accept Roberts.

"We're not out to physically harm this man. We're out to protect people," Tullgren said. "We just want people to be aware."

Tullgren said she discovered that Roberts is currently only "suspended" and has not undergone the process to be terminated from the priesthood.

She said Roberts is also receiving a $2,500 per month stipend from the Catholic Diocese of Las Vegas.

Roberts' guilty plea agreement required that he resign from the priesthood. Attorneys for the diocese have said that the process was under way.

Patrick Wall, a former monk who now works as an expert for a California law firm that handles cases involving abusive priests, said there is no way to tell how long it will take for Roberts to be defrocked.

"It can take as short as four months and it can take forever, depending on the issues involved," he said.

Laicization -- the removal of someone from the clergy --- is a complicated procedure that involves several steps, Wall said.

In most cases, a tribunal council of priests would prepare the priest's case, after which the bishop would create a petition to be sent to Rome, Wall said. The decision would then be final.

Wall said he believes the Vatican would prefer to have criminal cases involving wayward priests disposed of as quickly as possible.

"There's an old saying: Justice delayed is justice denied," he said. "When the process takes years, where is the justice?"

Herndon said one of the conditions of Roberts' probation was that "(Roberts) do everything in his means to terminate his priesthood."

"We can't control the Catholic Church," he said. "And to my knowledge, he is not trying to work anywhere as a priest."