Investigator summarizes report clearing Bishop of all claims

The following are key portions of Mary Jo White's press conference, held at Albany Law School on June 24, 2004:

Before we get into the findings of the investigation, let me just comment briefly...on what an independent investigation is and how we were able to be independent even though we have been retained by, and will be paid by, the Sexual Misconduct Review Board of the Albany Diocese....We have not been retained by Bishop Hubbard or the Diocese, and we are not the lawyers for Bishop Hubbard or the Diocese. We represent the Review Board, which is itself charged with investigating allegations of clergy sexual abuse.

Now, the kind of independent investigation that we have conducted in this matter is done by lawyers all the time, especially in this age of corporate scandals. Lawyers are hired to do a thorough investigation and report on their findings, whatever they may be -- negative, positive or neutral, even if that means being very critical of whomever hired you to do the investigation. That is the job you agreed with your client to undertake, and it is a job fully consistent with your ethical obligations as a lawyer....

As a professor from this law school who was quoted in a June 4th column in the Daily Gazette said, "If you're hired as a advocate, you cannot breach that duty. In contrast, if you're hired to investigate something, you let the chips fall where they may."

That is what we have done here, and there is nothing about our engagement, who is paying us, or our ethical obligations as lawyers that prevent us from saying negative things or finding adversely to the Review Board, Bishop Hubbard or the Diocese. Indeed, it is our ethical duty to do so if that is what the facts have shown. But, as we will now discuss, the facts did not substantiate any of the allegations against Bishop Hubbard....

We did not...have access to Andrew Zalay, Anthony Bonneau and, obviously, Father Minkler, the sources of the primary allegations against Bishop Hubbard. Despite numerous requests -- I think nine, actually -- to Andrew Zalay and his attorney, John Aretakis, we were also not given access to the original of the only document that purportedly links Thomas Zalay and Bishop Hubbard, which Andrew Zalay produced at his press conference on February 4.

Now, because of the unavailability of these witnesses and materials, we were required to broaden the scope of our investigation considerably to learn more about the allegations and more about the people making those allegations from other sources. This, of course, unfortunately, added considerably to the cost and the time it took to do a thorough, professional investigation. It did not, however, ultimately affect our ability to reach conclusions in which we have confidence on all of the allegations. Our assignment was, as we said at the outset, to do a very thorough, objective and independent investigation, and we have done that....

The written report sets forth in detail the scope of the investigation and our findings....The report is over 200 pages in length and is accompanied by approximately 350 pages of supporting exhibits....

Let's turn now to the allegations by Andrew Zalay. Andrew Zalay Jr. asserted on Feb. 4, 2004, at a press conference here in Albany with attorney John Aretakis, that Bishop Howard Hubbard, the bishop of the Albany Diocese, had engaged in a homosexual relationship with Mr. Zalay's younger brother, Tom Zalay, six months to a year before Tom's death on April 19, 1978; and, secondly, that this alleged relationship between Bishop Hubbard and Tom Zalay contributed to Tom Zalay's decision to commit suicide on April 19, 1978.

Now, in support of his allegations, Andrew Zalay released two notes, which he called "suicide notes," that he said were written by his brother Thomas....One of these two notes is typed...[and] is neither dated nor signed. And this is important to emphasize: It is only this note that makes reference to "Howard," "the bishop" and a sexual relationship.

The second document offered by Andrew Zalay at his press conference on February 4th, was an undated, hand-written note....Unlike the typed note,...this hand-written note, which the investigation has verified was written by Thomas Zalay, does not refer to Bishop Hubbard, Howard or any relationship with any member of the clergy....

We...have doubts about the typed note's authenticity because its content is inconsistent with Tom Zalay's [style of] writing at the time of his suicide....A comparison of the typed note, which is rational and lucid, and the April 1978 handwritten note, which is scribbled and almost incoherent, leads us to doubt that they were written by the same person at or about the same time....

There is no credible evidence supporting the substance of the allegation in the typed note that Bishop Hubbard and Tom Zalay had a sexual relationship. We discovered no evidence that Tom Zalay ever even met Bishop Hubbard. Andrew Zalay has asserted that Tom Zalay's relationship with Bishop Hubbard occurred six months to a year before his death, in other words, sometime between April 1977 and April 1978....Tom was hospitalized for practically this entire period. There is no evidence that Bishop Hubbard counseled or ministered to Tom Zalay or other psychiatric facilities, nor is there any evidence that Tom Zalay sought or obtained counseling from Bishop Hubbard at any time. Thus, even if Tom Zalay did write the typed note, we found no evidence that its contents are true....

Bishop Hubbard testified under oath -- he was placed under oath -- that he did not have a sexual relationship with Tom Zalay and did not know him. He also voluntarily underwent a polygraph examination relating to the allegations of Andrew Zalay. And the polygrapher concluded that the denials were truthful....Bishop Hubbard was asked with respect to the Zalay allegations:

* "Did you ever engage in a sexual act with Tom Zalay?" Answer, "no."

* "Have you ever had any kind of sexual relationship or sexual contact with Tom Zalay?" Answer, "no."

* "Do you specifically remember ever meeting Tom Zalay?" Answer, "no."

* "Have you ever had sex of any kind with another person?" Answer, "no."

* "Have you ever had sex of any kind with another male?" Answer, "no"....

Each of those denials was found to have been truthful. Based upon this and the other evidence that is detailed in the report, we have concluded that there is no credible evidence to substantiate the allegations of sexual misconduct made by Andrew Zalay against Bishop Hubbard....

On February 6, 2004, Anthony Bonneau, accompanied by John Aretakis, asserted at a press conference here in Albany, that he had had two paid sexual encounters in the 1970s in Albany's Washington Park with a man he believed to have been Bishop Hubbard. He noted that he was 99.9 percent but not 100 percent certain that the man was Bishop Hubbard. Mr. Bonneau declined to be interviewed....Anthony Bonneau has said that he did not realize the man was Bishop Hubbard until a decade ago when he saw Bishop Hubbard on television and recognized him as the priest from Washington Park....

As an initial matter, we should all consider the limits of anyone's ability to recognize anyone seen only on television based solely on the memory of relatively brief encounters two or three decades earlier....

In an effort to substantiate both Anthony Bonneau's and Bishop Hubbard's presence and action in Washington Park in the 1970s, we talked to as many current and former Albany Police Department officers, whose work in the '70s and early '80s regularly involved Washington Park, as we could possibly locate. We ended up locating 16 in all....Each of these officers stated, to a person, that he had never seen or apprehended Bishop Hubbard in Washington Park and had never heard that any other police officer had seen or apprehended Bishop Hubbard in Washington Park....According to a number of police officers and priests, one of these priests [who did frequent the park], no longer in the Albany Diocese, bore some resemblance to Bishop Hubbard and also referred to himself or was referred to by others with the nickname, "The Bishop"....This priest ultimately acknowledged engaging in homosexual activity with adults in various locations in Albany, including Washington Park. However, he denied ever referring to himself as "The Bishop" or hearing anyone else refer to him in that way. On June 14th, he voluntarily took a polygraph as to whether he ever called himself or was known as "Bishop"....He was asked, "Did you ever identify yourself as a Bishop?" Answer, "no." "Did you ever refer to yourself as 'Bishop'?" Answer, "no." "Before this investigation, did you ever hear anyone refer to you as 'Bishop'?" Answer, "no."

The polygrapher, Jim Murphy, concluded that this other priest was being untruthful in answering this question "no"....

Bishop Hubbard categorically denied the Bonneau allegations under oath again and submitted to a polygraph test that determined that he was being truthful when he denied these allegations....

Based upon all of this and other allegations detailed in the report, we have concluded that there is no credible evidence to substantiate the allegations made by Anthony Bonneau against Bishop Hubbard.

Let's move now to the allegations that are contained in the letter and notes of Father John Minkler. Two documents...surfaced in the media after the Zalay and Bonneau press conferences which asserted that Bishop Hubbard had sexual relationships with three other named priests in the Albany Diocese. The first is the Minkler letter: a typed letter, dated June 10, 1995, which is addressed to Cardinal John O'Connor of the Archdiocese of New York. Father Minkler was publicly identified as the author of this letter for the first time on February 12, 2004. The other document with allegations against Bishop Hubbard is the Minkler Note, a set of handwritten notes signed by Father John Minkler and dated January 9, 2001....Together, the Minkler letter and notes combined make four allegations of sexual misconduct against Bishop Hubbard. Number one, that he had homosexual experiences in the past and that he is currently -- and this would have been 1995 -- involved with two young priests....Allegation two in the Minkler materials was that Bishop Hubbard was involved in a ring of homosexual priests in the Albany Diocese. Allegation three, that he lived a double life. Allegation four, and this is in the Minkler notes, not the letter, that he had homosexual relations with [another priest].

Father Minkler -- it's important to recognize this -- did not claim, in any of these documents, to have direct knowledge to support these allegations....

We spoke to many friends of Father Minkler from the early 1980s to the present, and several described Father Minkler's vehement disagreement and displeasure and indeed obsession with what Father Minkler perceived as Bishop Hubbard's ultra-liberal leadership of the Albany Diocese. One of the friends of Father Minkler stated that he was always looking for something on Hubbard, something of a sexual nature....

The first allegation by Father Minkler against Bishop Hubbard in the 1995 letter was that a young priest had been told by his pastor that Bishop Hubbard was involved with [two priests]....[They] provided sworn statements, under oath, denying any sexual activity with Bishop Hubbard, and both voluntarily took a polygraph examination, which they passed....

The second allegation by Father Minkler against Bishop Hubbard was that a female Albany doctor, who works with AIDS patients here in Albany, had heard about a ring of homosexual Albany priests, which also included Bishop Hubbard. We identified four Albany physicians and one male Albany physician who had worked with AIDS patients in 1995. All denied having any knowledge of Bishop Hubbard engaging in homosexual activity or of hearing of it.

The third allegation by Father Minkler in the 1995 letter was that a permanent deacon at the Cathedral in Albany, where Bishop Hubbard has been residing for the last few years, feels that Bishop Hubbard is living a double life. The investigation was also able to identify as the permanent deacon, the late Arthur Egan....[His] sister and his best friend said that Arthur Egan never mentioned Bishop Hubbard having a secret or improper life.

The fourth allegation by Father Minkler [was] that Bishop Hubbard has slept with [a third priest]....[That priest] also provided a sworn statement to the investigation denying any sexual activity with Bishop Hubbard [and] voluntarily took a polygraph examination, which he passed....

We could not confirm, by the way, that Father Minkler actually sent the 1995 letter addressed to Cardinal O'Connor to Cardinal O'Connor, or that he had prepared it for Cardinal O'Connor, as Father Minkler had claimed to a number of his friends and allies. Several close associates of Cardinal O'Connor said that Cardinal O'Connor dealt directly with people, in a straightforward manner. They said it would be highly uncharacteristic of him to use Father Minkler, or anyone else, as a mole. The individuals who were responsible for Cardinal O'Connor's correspondence never saw or heard of the 1995 Minkler letter. The lack of any evidence of any follow-up by Cardinal O'Connor, the papal nuncio, or the Vatican also is suggestive that the Minkler letter was never sent to Cardinal O'Connor....

Let me...tell you what the overall conclusions of our investigation were:...

Number one: There is no credible evidence to substantiate the allegations of Andrew Zalay that Bishop Howard Hubbard had a relationship with Tom Zalay, sexual or otherwise.

Number two: There is no credible evidence to substantiate the allegations of Anthony Bonneau that Bishop Hubbard paid Anthony Bonneau for sexual acts while Bonneau was a male prostitute working in Washington Park or at any other time.

Finding three: There is no credible evidence to substantiate the allegations contained in the Minkler letter that Bishop Hubbard was involved in a homosexual relationship with the two priests named in the letter....

Finding four: There is no credible evidence to substantiate the allegations contained in the Minkler note that Bishop Hubbard was involved in a homosexual relationship with a third named priest in the Minkler notes....

Finding five: There is no credible evidence to substantiate the allegation reportedly contained in additional letters by Father Minkler that Bishop Hubbard was involved in a homosexual relationship with a fourth named priest....

Hopefully, this investigation and report will bring at least some transparency, if not closure, to the allegations of sexual misconduct that have been made against Bishop Hubbard. But allegations of a similar nature can be expected to emerge in the future....We would hope that such allegations made, whether today or in the future, will be met with considerable skepticism and very carefully scrutinized for their factual basis....And I really want to emphasize this: Our deepest hope is that none of this be allowed to cloud or diminish legitimate claims by the victims of actual clergy abuse.

(7/1/04)