Investigator clears Bishop Hubbard

An independent investigator who spent four months looking into allegations of sexual misconduct against Bishop Howard J. Hubbard has cleared him of all the allegations.

At a nearly two-hour press conference June 24, Mary Jo White, a former U.S. attorney, repeatedly said there is "no credible evidence" as she went through the list of allegations that had been made about the Bishop.

She also issued a 200-page public report detailing her investigation; it came with 350 pages of exhibits.

Exhaustive inquiry

Ms. White said that the investigation, which began in February, included interviews with approximately 300 witnesses, a review of more than 20,000 pages of documents, and nine polygraph examinations conducted by the former chief of the FBI's Polygraph Unit.

Ms. White said that Bishop Hubbard voluntarily took a polygraph "and was found to be truthful in his denial of all" the allegations against him.

In February, John Aretakis, a New York City attorney who lives in the Albany Diocese, arranged news conferences at which he and his clients publicly accused the Bishop of sexual misconduct in the 1970s.

Mr. Aretakis also made public a document in which Rev. John Minkler, a diocesan priest, accused the Bishop of having sexual relations with priests. Father Minkler committed suicide after the document was made public.

Denials

The Bishop vehemently denied all of the claims and said he had never engaged in sexual activity with anyone of any gender or any age at any time. The Bishop also said he would not investigate himself and called for an independent investigation of the allegations.

The Diocese first requested that the Albany County district attorney look into the claims, but the DA declined since they were beyond the statute of limitations. The Diocesan Review Board, the panel charged with investigating claims of sexual misconduct against priests of the Albany Diocese, retained Ms. White to conduct an independent investigation.

She is a former U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York who prosecuted mobster John Gotti and the World Trade Center bombers. Ms. White is now in private practice in Manhattan at the firm of Debevoise & Plimpton.

Although Ms. White met all of Mr. Aretakis's conditions for cooperating in the inquiry, he refused to take part.

Findings

Mr. Aretakis had offered as evidence of one of the allegations an unsigned, undated, typed letter that he claimed was written by a man who died in 1978.

Ms. White's report said, "We have serious doubts about the authenticity" of the letter "and question whether it was actually written" by the man to whom it is attributed.

Mr. Aretakis refused to allow the letter to be examined by an independent expert of his own choosing.

In her findings, Ms. White said that she found "credible evidence" that a former priest of the Albany Diocese who led a homosexual lifestyle had often masqueraded as the Bishop. The former priest denied doing so but failed a polygraph exam.

As for the claims in the Minkler document, all of the parties involved passed polygraph exams in which they denied having sexual relations with the Bishop.

Ms. White summed up her report by saying, "We are extremely confident in our conclusion that there is no credible evidence to substantiate any of the allegations of sexual misconduct or activity made against Bishop Hubbard."

(6/25/04)