Theodore McCarrick’s attorneys are asking for the dismissal of a child abuse case against him. They claim that the 92-year old is not competent to stand trial due to his dementia.
McCarrick was the archbishop and bishop of Metuchen from 1986 to 2000. He also served as the archbishop and bishop of Newark in the 1980s. In the 2021 Massachusetts case, he has pleaded no contest in the allegations that he abused an 18-year-old boy at a wedding in 1974 at Wellesley College, Massachusetts.
McCarrick was the first Catholic cardinal to be charged with child sex exploitation in the United States.
His lawyers filed a request to dismiss the criminal case. They wrote that while McCarrick is “intelligent” and “articulate”, his dementia and the decline in his memory render him “incapable of assisting in his defence”.
They cited an exam by a professor of behavioral science and psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine who determined McCarrick had dementia, “likely caused by Alzheimer’s disease.”
Mitch Garabedian said that, “Experience taught me that, the closer a priest is to trial, the less competent he becomes.”
Garabedian said that his client, whose name has not been made public, “takes great pride in coming forward to confront one of the most historically influential and immoral Catholic cardinals.” My client’s strength keeps children safe.”
Barry Coburn, McCarrick’s attorney, refused to comment on the case to NorthJersey.com or The Record on Monday.
Media reports claim that prosecutors plan to hire an expert to evaluate the prelate’s competence.
According to the alleged victim’s lawsuit, McCarrick assaulted him as a teenager.
McCarrick is accused of abusing the teenager at his brother’s wedding. McCarrick was a priest in New York who was a family friend. He groped him after he got him alone on campus and told him, “Your father wants you to come with me and talk” because he hadn’t been going to church.
The police report states that the priest took the accuser to a coatroom and told him “he needed to go to confession.” McCarrick, who allegedly sexually abused the boy again, told him to pray “Our Father” or “Hail Mary,” so that he could be forgiven for his sins.
McCarrick was accused of assault and battery against a person 14 years or older in relation to an incident that occurred at the wedding on June 14, 1974. The accuser, who was 16 years old at the time, was abused in Massachusetts and other states including New Jersey.
McCarrick has pleaded not guilt to the charges.
McCarrick was removed as a minister in 2018 after the church found an allegation against him of child sexual abuse credible. He was defrocked one year later after allegations that he had abused children and seminary students.
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McCarrick, who was ordained in 1959, rose through the ranks of the Church despite the fact that he had slept with seminarians.
He lived in a Missouri treatment center for priests and clergy members who had committed sexual abuse.
In 2020, the Vatican published an explosive report that detailed how McCarrick rose through the ranks of the church despite reports that church leaders received that he abused both children and adult seminarians for many years.
While in New Jersey, he took seminarians to a Jersey Shore Beach House, where he had a reputation for sexually harassing the seminarians. The beach house belonged to the diocese.
Two seminary professors have told The Record and NorthJersey.com they raised the alarm with superiors in the late 1980s after seminarians complained that they were forced to go to the beach house together. The New York Times reported that in 1994, a former seminary pupil went to Metuchen church officials to complain about McCarrick’s abuse.
Robert Hoatson is a former priest of the Archdiocese of Newark and now a New Jersey advocate for clergy abuse victims. “He could’ve been stopped by cardinals and bishops who knew his history.”
Hoatson said: “I hope that he is found competent enough to stand trial, because it will help his victim’s gain a measure of justice and closure.”
