California prosecutors say former Las Vegas bishop covered up abuse

Tuesday, Aug. 29, 2006 | 7:06 a.m.

The former bishop of the Las Vegas Catholic Diocese faces potential charges in California for failing to report allegations of child sexual abuse by a priest he supervised there.

Sonoma County law enforcement investigators say they have enough evidence to pursue criminal charges against Bishop Daniel Walsh for his failure to report the incidents. The Sonoma sheriff's office says it has forwarded the investigation results to the district attorney's office.

The Sonoma case bears similarities to one that occurred in Henderson involving a priest under Walsh's charge. Walsh took over the Las Vegas Diocese when it was formed in 1995 and he left in 2000.

Walsh admitted in 2002 that as early as 1995 he had learned that the Rev. Mark Roberts of St. Peter the Apostle Catholic Church in Henderson allegedly molested boys. An attorney who represented the boys said he is not surprised by the Sonoma case.

"History has been allowed to repeat itself," said attorney Al Massi, who earned his law degree at Villanova University, a Catholic school. "I have come to expect it because no one in the Catholic Church is supervising the supervisors. As a result, it made the people in Santa Rosa victims because historically Bishop Walsh does not react."

Massi said one of his clients told Walsh in 1995 that Roberts had sexually abused him and that Walsh did nothing except have the priest evaluated and receive counseling. Roberts was not indicted until 2001, and not for the incident that had been reported to Walsh.

In Santa Rosa, the Rev. Xavier Ochoa, 68, admitted to Walsh on April 28 that he committed acts of misconduct with children at St. Francis Solano Church in Sonoma, law officials there said.

Walsh waited until May 1 to report it to Child Protective Services, which provided Ochoa time to flee the country, investigators said.

California law requires clergy to immediately report sexual acts against children by other church officials.

Ochoa has been charged with 10 felony counts and one misdemeanor count of child sex abuse with three alleged victims.

Massi said he has learned from a source, whom he would not name, that Ochoa now is working at an orphanage in Mexico. An Associated Press report quotes police as saying Ochoa is believed to be in Mexico.

Recently, Walsh apologized for waiting to report Ochoa to authorities, saying he immediately stripped Ochoa of his duties.

Walsh did not return a phone call Monday. In a news release earlier this month, Walsh said he made an error in judgment.

"The reading of my motives has been so wrong - that I waited so he (Ochoa) could escape, that I was covering up," Walsh said. "The delay was not premeditated. It was a human mistake."

In the Las Vegas case, the civil suit against Roberts was scheduled to go to trial in October but in part was resolved last month when seven of Massi's clients, via binding arbitration, settled for large undisclosed sums.

Court motions are scheduled for October that could result in settlements with the two remaining victims, Massi said.

The court had previously determined that Walsh was a corporate officer of the church and thus was entitled to protection from professional liability stemming from his alleged failure to act.

Massi said that each of the boys "was more than satisfied with the results" of the arbitrators' award. He declined to name a settlement figure but said that by comparison, the Catholic Church "fared much better in past sexual abuse lawsuits" than they did in this one.

Between 1950 and 1995, the dioceses of Reno and Las Vegas paid $4.3 million for the actions of eight Catholic priests who were accused of sexually abusing 13 minors in Nevada, according to a report released in February by the U.S. Conference of Bishops.

In January 2003, Roberts pleaded guilty to one count of open or gross lewdness and four counts of child abuse and neglect. He was sentenced to three months' probation.