What Rudolph Giuliani lacked in marital fidelity, he made up for in loyalty to his cronies. He rewarded underlings such as Peter Powers and Christyne Lategano when their usefulness timed out. They went on to serve in other high paying jobs. Were it not for a bribery scandal, former police commissioner, Bernard Kerik would have benefited from Rudy's largess. However, there was one scandal-scarred friend who did and still continues to do so.
Monsignor Alan Placa is a boy hood pal of Giuliani. Placa joined the priesthood in 1970 and eventually attained a law degree. He rose in the ranks of the archdiocese to become part of a three man “intervention team.” The team investigated all sex abuse complaints against priests in Long Island, New York. In reality, plaintiffs complained that priests were never reprimanded. But moved from diocese to diocese. There was also the allegation that Placa never revealed that he was a lawyer. Plaintiffs would confess intimate details of sexual abuse that Placa in the capacity of attorney could use against them in favor of the church.
In 2001, Placa became the subject of sexual abuse, himself. Richard Tollner, a mortgage broker in Albany, recounted his perpetual abuse by Placa as a young boy. Tollner said Placa fondled him and that the incidents were repeated every month or so for the next year and a half. “It was always groping,” he said. “He’d draw his hand deliberately to the inside of my thigh, and over my penis. It would go on for four or five minutes, sometimes as long as ten.” A friend of Tollner’s, Kevin Waldron of San Francisco stated: “This isn’t a figment of his imagination twenty-five-years later. He told me about it shortly after it happened. I am certain of it.”
A second former student who asked that his name be withheld said that he described to Suffolk county prosecutors what he called the newspaper drill. “He always had a New York Times in his office. And he’d sit down next to you on the couch in his office, and open it wide and inevitably, his hand would brush your crotch. He did it over and over again. I can’t tell you how many times.”
In 2002, Placa was relieved of his duties as a priest. The archdiocese did allow him to preside at the funeral of the mother of Rudy Giuliani. But, he is not allowed to wear the collar until an investigation is completed. Placa denies all charges. And before he could cash his first unemployment check, his old friend Rudy gave him a job as a lawyer. He continues to work at the prestigious New York firm of Giuliani and Partners. But as an ex-priest, he still remains in judgment of a jury of God and his accusers.
No comments:
Post a Comment