Voris: “Somehow, things have gotten out of control”
By Damien Fisher
At the end of Tuesday’s emergency court hearing held the day after Christmas, United States District Court Judge Joseph LaPlante had pointed parting words for Michael Voris and Mike Sherry.
“Mr. Voris, Mr. Sherry, I look forward to your retention of counsel,” LaPlante said.
Sherry, the current president of Church Militant’s board, and Voris, the now disgraced former board president and founder, agreed to an order that essentially gives New Hampshire priest the Rev. Georges de Laire control over Church Militant finances pending the outcome of the defamation lawsuit. Neither is currently represented by a lawyer, the result of Voris’ so-far disastrous legal machinations.
In perhaps the first good decision Voris has made in the case, he appeared in Tuesday’s Zoom call as an audio-only participant.
Voris and his assistants at Church Militant, Christine Niles and Simon Rafe, are accused in court documents of hiding and destroying evidence. Voris is also accused of lying about basic facts of the case, hiding the identity of key figure Marc Balestrieri, using Church Militant money to give Balestrieri an interest -free loan, and later threatening Balestrieri when it seemed his testimony could hurt Voris.
Voris and Church Militant defending themselves in court; judge advises a different plan
LaPlante was blunt with the pair, telling them Church Militant’s legal defense up to this point has been “troubling.”
“Unorthodox is the most charitable word I can use,” LaPlante said. “The way it’s been conducted is troubling from the defense’s perspective.”
In August, Voris’s attorneys Kathleen Klaus and Neil Nicholson quit the case, a day after Niles admitted under oath that she had been sitting on texts with Balestrieri that should have been turned over as evidence. LaPLante said Klaus and Nicholson quit because they “could not continue due to the conduct of one of the parties in the case.”
Howard Cooper, de Laire’s attorney, said in court the conflict came about because members of Church Militant’s board want to pursue criminal charges against Voris.
Voris: “Somehow, things have gotten out of control”
Voris, perhaps trying to refute the idea he is criminally liable, spoke up during the hearing to set the record straight about Lehmann’s departure.
“Somehow, things have gotten out of control,” Voris said.
Voris started to explain that he and Sherry, as a pair, did not ask Lehmann about separate defenses. Instead, Voris started to say that both he and Sherry had private conversations with Lehmann about different possibilities for the defense.
It was at this point, LaPlante stopped Voris from speaking.
“I don’t know where you’re going with this,” LaPlante said.
The judge then explained to Voris that his statements were approaching a legal line, and if he continued talking, he would be effectively waiving attorney-client privilege with Lehmann, and all his communications with the former attorney would become discoverable in the trial.
Voris tried to simplify his message while protecting his interests.
“Mr. Sherry and I have not arrived at a decision that we’re two competing parties,” Voris said.
Voris followed this statement with a drawn-out explanation that the pending sale of Church Militant’s only real assets, two office buildings in Ferndale, Michigan — which were the subject of Tuesday’s hearing — have nothing to do with the de Laire lawsuit. LaPlante responded that the reason for the sale is not relevant to the hearing to decide what happens to the money.
“I don’t know what you want me to do with that information,” LaPlante said.
When Voris then tried to explain he had not had a chance to speak to Sherry about these matters before Tuesday’s hearing, the Judge seemed surprised.
“That’s mystifying,” LaPlante said.
Church Militant sale proceeds to go into escrow so it doesn’t disappear
Hemorrhaging donations in wake of the scandal, the Michigan non-profit is about to close on a deal to sell the two office buildings, one which is home to Church Militant’s offices and studio. But under the agreement reached Tuesday, the proceeds of those sales, set to close Thursday, are now frozen in an escrow account.
Sherry was authorized by his board to agree to a capped escrow of $200,000, saying any more could mean the end of Church Militant.
“I can accept a $200,000 attachment, but we cannot do the full amount; we might as well shut down,” Sherry said.
Cooper stressed on Tuesday that de Laire is not trying to end Church Militant, but simply to secure funds that are likely to go to him either in a settlement or in damages awarded by a jury. To that end, Cooper offered to allow Church Militant to access the funds to keep the lights on. But the non-profit would first need to prove the figure they need.
Church Militant must disclose operating expenses
Sherry appeared alone in the Zoom hearing, streaming from an empty studio. He did not seem to understand the proceedings at times. After Cooper’s proposal was repeatedly explained to him, Sherry agreed to allow all the building sale money to go into an escrow account. Sherry is now under court order to file an affidavit stating Church Militant’s monthly operating expenses. The organization will be allowed to draw out that amount from escrow in order to keep operating.
LaPlante said the escrow order is temporary and will be revisited once Voris and Sherry both find new lawyers. The judge suggested whoever Voris and Sherry find to defend them in court, they be first allowed to speak with the attorneys who quit the case.
*** Image: Mike Sherry in a Church Militant studio during Tuesday’s virtual hearing. Courtroom sketch by Simcha Fisher
The answer, it seems, is that Church Militant wants to pursue unspecified criminal charges against Voris.
Voris appeared alone in his video feed and seemed to be streaming himself from his home. A dog could be seen in the background, at times licking itself.
Criminal charges for Voris?
Lehmann recently filed a motion to leave the case as the defense lawyer for Voris and Church Militant, citing an untenable conflict of interest that arose as Lehmann attempted to get the Catholic media non-profit to comply with a court order to stop hiding evidence.
Howard Cooper, the attorney representing de Laire, told LaPlante that he was informed Lehmann is leaving due to the possibility of a criminal case involving the defendants.
“It’s my understanding there are calls from members of the board for Voris to be criminally prosecuted,” Cooper said.
Cooper wanted Mike Sherry, the current Church Media board president who also attended via video, to confirm a possible criminal investigation into the conflict forcing Lehmann out. The exact nature of that conflict was disclosed in a brief virtual in camera session between LaPlante, Lehmann, Voris, and Sherry, after which LaPlante agreed Lehman cannot stay on the case
“I am going to have to allow (Lehmann) to withdraw,” LaPlante said.
Lehmann is the third Church Militant lawyer to quit the case citing an untenable conflict of interest. The trial in de Laire’s defamation lawsuit is still scheduled for February, and neither Church Militant nor Voris have lawyers.
Voris, who now cannot rely on Church Militant to provide an attorney, told LaPlante he will likely represent himself at trial out of necessity since he cannot afford to hire counsel.
“Frankly I do not have the financial wherewithal to do that,” Voris said. “I do not have a job, I do not have any money to speak of, except some equity in my home. I would have to be my own counsel.”
LaPlante told Voris it is his right to act as his own attorney, though he strongly discouraged the former broadcaster from representing himself.
If there is good news for Church Militant, it is that de Laire is now offering a settlement agreement, after saying on the record for months he had no plans to deal. The terms of the settlement offer are not being made public, but it will likely be costly for the beleaguered media company.
Church Militant had no defamation liability insurance
Sherry said Church Militant has no insurance to cover damages, and no assets outside of the two commercial buildings that house the organization. Both buildings in Ferndale, Michigan are currently for sale.
At this point, Church Militant could possibly soon lose its home, its equipment, and all its money.
LaPlante pressed Sherry on whether Church Militant has anything of value that could go toward a settlement, or be forcibly turned over through damages. Sherry told LaPlante the equipment inside the building, mostly studio gear, is owned by Church Militant outright and is valued at about $1 million. LaPLante then asked about how much money Church Militant has in cash donation, the major source of revenue.
Sherry did not know the current figures for Church Militant, and LaPlante empathized with Sherry, saying donors didn’t give them money with the intent to pay for damages in a lawsuit, but implied that might be what happens after the buildings and the studio equipment are liquidated.
Church Militant assets for sale, but where will the money go?
Cooper expressed concern about the impending sale of Church Militant’s buildings, and what might happen to the proceeds. Sherry did not agree to put the sale revenue into an escrow account pending the outcome of the case, as Cooper wants.
LaPlante is calling both sides back to court on Tuesday to give Sherry a chance to speak with a real estate advisor about the escrow proposal. In the meantime, LaPlante said no sale should happen until after the Tuesday conference.
“I don’t want to hear about anybody selling these properties between now and then,” LaPlante said.
If Sherry does not accept a voluntary escrow, Cooper is prepared to file a temporary restraining order against Church Militant and attach a lien on its property, essentially freezing any sales funds.
“We would hate to lose this place to the Devil and allow him to undermine all our work. That is precisely what he wants,” Sherry wrote.
That email did not mention the lawsuit, and it did not mention that the board of a news media non-profit did not ensure it has insurance in place to cover a defamation liability.
*** Courtroom sketch of Friday’s hearing by Clara Fisher. Voris appears at right
That’s the message current Church Militant President Mike Sherry sent out days after New Hampshire attorney Richard Lehmann announced he wants to quit defending the media “apostolate” in the federal defamation lawsuit that could further cripple the scandal-plagued organization.
“There are not too many places on the internet to get the kind of nourishment we specifically provide. We would hate to lose this place to the Devil and allow him to undermine all our work. That is precisely what he wants,” Sherry wrote in a Dec. 15 letter to Church Militant subscribers. “We appeal to you, our good supporter, to pray about this — all of this. We appeal to you out of faith to continue to prayerfully and financially help those of us who remain here in this mission field of Church Militant. We cannot continue if donations dry up.”
“The Evil One took a huge bite out of our apostolate”
Sherry blames the Devil for all of Church Militant’s current problems.
“Over the past month, Church Militant has suffered the greatest crisis of its 17-year history, beginning with the scandal that erupted online regarding the apostolate’s former leader, Michael Voris,” Sherry wrote. “The Evil One took a huge bite out of our apostolate and will stop at nothing other than complete annihilation of this good place. He may get what he wants.”
But Voris’ antics in the looming defamation case could have catastrophic consequences for Church Militant. Voris is being sued in federal court by the Rev. Georges de Laire, who serves as New Hampshire’s judicial vicar and a parish priest. Voris allegedly defamed de Laire when he published stories attacking de Laire in support of a Feeneyite fringe group in New Hampshire, the Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
Voris has again failed to meet the court ordered deadline to finally hand over discovery documents he’s allegedly been hiding. In fact, Lehmann filed his motion to withdraw from the case on Dec. 11, the latest deadline set by Judge Joseph LaPlante.
Voris originally had until Dec. 5 to come up with the discovery documents, but got an extension until Dec. 11 based on the turmoil caused by the firing. After Voris was fired, he stayed on the Church Militant board until Dec. 5, according to Lehmann’s motion.
Four lawyers down
While working with Voris, Sherry, and other Church Militant leadership to get the discovery documents filed, Lehmann writes he soon found he could not continue to represent the outfit.
“During conversations with Mr. Voris and the new leadership of St. Michael’s Media on December 7 and December 8, it became apparent that an untenable conflict of interest had arisen under New Hampshire Rule of Professional Conduct 1.7 (a) that precludes (Lehmann) from providing representation to both St. Michael’s Media and Michael Voris due to these changed circumstances,” Lehmann wrote.
Lehmann cites the same ethics rule used by attorneys Kathleen Klaus and Neil Nicholson when they quit the defense in August. That rule, concerning conflicts of interest, states lawyers cannot represent clients when there is a concurrent conflict of interest. Those are defined as when: (1) the representation of one client will be directly adverse to another client; or (2) there is a significant risk that the representation of one or more clients will be materially limited by the lawyer’s responsibilities to another client, a former client or a third person or by a personal interest of the lawyer.
Nicholson and Klaus quit one day after former Church Militant reporter Christine Niles admitted under oath in a deposition that she did not turn over all text communications she had with key witness Marc Balestrieri. She had previously told de Laire’s lawyers she had, in fact, turned over everything.
Niles later claimed she misread an email from Klaus about handing over all emails and texts, thinking it only applied to Voris personally. She signed a statement filed Dec. 5 that she no longer has access to any email or text associated with the case since she is no longer a Church Militant employee.
Lehmann is now the fourth attorney hired to represent Church Militant in the lawsuit, and the third to quit. The fourth lawyer, Marc Randazza, was barred by LaPlante from appearing in the case due to Randazza’s own ethical issues.
This leaves Church Militant without any representation in the lawsuit, which is scheduled to go to trial in February. Lawyers for de Laire are objecting to Lehmann’s departure, saying it represents another delay in the case that started in 2021.
“There has never been any mismanagement”
Since Voris was ousted, former employees say board members knew since at least the spring that Voris was living a gay double life while continuing to denounce other Catholics for similar lifestyles. There are also questions about what Voris and the organization were doing with donor money. Sherry blames “Internet chatter” for these accusations and promises in his fundraising letter to come clean with Church Militant supporters, and prove Voris and others did nothing wrong.
“The board would like you to know that it is conducting an independent financial audit to prove there has never been any mismanagement of donor funds, either by board members or by Michael Voris,” Sherry wrote. “The board was never involved in any sort of cover-up for Michael Voris, financially or otherwise, and did, in fact, ask him to resign immediately upon learning of his personal failings.”
Court records in the de Laire case include a loan agreement between Balestrieri and Church Militant reached last year. Voris signed the agreement, lending Balestrieri $65,000 in Church Militant money at no interest.
Balestrieri is either the source for the alleged defamatory statements Voris published, the sole author, or Voris’s collaborator, depending on the different versions put forward so far.
Voris originally tried to hide Balestrieri’s involvement from de Laire, but admitted Balestrieri was the author in late 2021, months after the lawsuit was filed. Voris originally in court documents claimed he was the author.
Balestrieri has claimed he did not write the defamatory statements about de Laire, and was set to give a deposition under oath this summer before he disappeared. Voris is accused of threatening Balestrieri about the authorship in a June text sent on the day Balestrieri agreed to sit for the deposition.
Given Lehmann’s motion to withdraw could significantly delay the case again, de Laire’s lawyers may seek a default judgment against Voris and Church Militant. That would mean, if granted, Voris would be found liable without trial on the facts, and the case would simply be a matter of deciding how much de Laire is owed in damages.
Church Militant looks for new leader who understands the mission
With the future in doubt thanks to Voris, Sherry writes that a new leader from outside the organization will be hired to take charge.
“The board fully understands change must take place within its ranks. It has approved an interview with a possible new director, a non-employee, and will soon replace its current directors who are Church Militant employees, making sure they, too, are faithful Catholics who understand the mission of the apostolate,” Sherry wrote.
Assuming the Devil loses this round, and a miracle occurs in the United States District Court in Concord, Church Militant is already planning new shows. According to Sherry, the line up includes: Unveiling Mary (tentative title) — Hosted by Brad Eli and Rodney Pelletier, The Afterlife Coach (tentative title) — Hosted by Ryan Seybold, and The Extraordinary Road (placeholder title) — Hosted by Veronica Vance.
***
Image is a still from an undated video in which Mike Sherry, then in Church Militant’s tech department, acts out a short skit in which he briefly falls under the thrall of the gruff-voiced, rubber-masked character “Loan Shark.” Sherry extorts money from his co-workers, but eventually learns that it’s better to give than to take. Christine Niles also briefly appears in the skit, counseling her co-workers on how to earmark money so that it doesn’t “go to the bishops.” By the end of the video, Sherry uses the Gospel to convert Loan Shark, who no longer demands money, but allows money to be donated to the Carmelites, instead.
Church Militant’s board covered up for founder Michael Voris as he allegedly groomed male staffers while openly living a double life and paying staffers “poverty wages” while giving himself raises, according to several ex-employees who say they were fired for speaking out this week.
“The very cover-up tactics that Church Militant has railed against for 15 years are now being used against faithful former employees,” the group said in a fundraising statement.
Voris, who resigned just before Thanksgiving, is still a board member and is already planning a comeback, they said. Voris’ return to being in front of the camera was always part of the plan when he resigned for violating Church Militant’s morality clause, they said.
The group of eight Church Militant employees led by Dave Gordon say they were forced out of the organization’s Ferndale, Michigan offices on Friday, seven with police escorts. The group is now trying to raise $255,000 to “save the apostolate.”
As of Saturday morning they had raised $50.
Voris, who claims to have been cured of homosexuality, was allegedly actively pursuing homosexual encounters, including with employees, they said. Voris’ lifestyle was known to board members.
“Our band of brothers was formed in light of the recent revelations that our former CEO Michael Voris had re-embraced the homosexual lifestyle while the Board of Directors attempted to cover it up,” they said.
The group said they protested the layoff of one employee during a board meeting, and called for the board to step down. Their statement lays out their reasons as follows:
“1. Entertaining allowing Michael Voris, who seemingly groomed a former employee and lived a homosexual double life while posturing as a beacon of Christian virtue, to resume employment at Church Militant after he completes a 12-step program
Delaying naming a CEO beyond what is necessary to responsibly vet and appoint a successor
Advocating to deceive donors by putting out an official statement that Voris resigned due to health concerns
Turning on an employee for vigorously objecting to renewed Church Militant employment for Voris and to a deceptively worded statement explaining Voris’ resignation.
Failing to come up with a content plan that would ensure Church Militant’s future success.
Keeping Michael Voris on the board of directors as a nonvoting member.”
Gordon released a video in the early morning hours of Saturday, but made it private a couple of hours later.
“Guys, I’m overtired and mad and not thinking clearly. I want to think hard about whether posting that Church Militant video is in fact morally right. So I’ve put it as private for now. Will make the call tomorrow,” Gordon wrote on Twitter/X.
Viewers who watched the video while it was still public say Gordon alleges Voris was sending semi-nude photos to staffers, sent one such photo to a potential donor, invited an employee to his house while gay porn was playing on his computer, and groomed at least one male staffer. At least one such photo has been circulated on Twitter.
Gordon and the employees also accuse Voris of financial mismanagement. Gordon reportedly said they were paid poverty wages while Voris gave himself raises.
In the GiveSendGo appeal, the ex-employees say, “We have little doubt that St. Michaels Media / Church Militant will come at us with legal action. Two group members have already been contacted by Church Militant’s lawyer Kate Klaus.” Klaus is one of the attorneys who quit the legal case attempting to defend Church Militant against defamation, after Niles was caught hiding evidence during her deposition.
Gordon also said on Twitter/X that Church Militant “forgot to sign” his nondisclosure agreement, and that he has revoked consent to their lawyer.
Hey @Church_Militant, looks like y’all forgot to sign my NDA. Oops. “Professionalism”; “Industry experience.” It’s OK though. I already revoked my consent to your lawyer. pic.twitter.com/XagZe0PTi2
In Voris’ public video announcing his resignation, he said “I am not sure exactly when I will be back, if I am indeed back in front of the camera,” and he urges viewers to continue supporting his “apostolate.” Voris’ “investigative reporter” Christine Niles, in her public resignation video, also said she hoped to return to Church Militant as a contributor, and also urged viewers to continue funding the organization.
Voris did not respond to a request for comment.
UPDATE: As of Saturday evening, the group of former employees had lowered their goal to $75,000 and received $75 in pledges.
UPDATE: Gordon made the video public again on Saturday evening. Here is the video:
Days before a morality clause violation forced Gary Michael Voris to resign his job leading St. Michael’s Media, Voris’ attorney Richard Lehmann asked United States District Court Judge Joseph LaPlante to delay the upcoming trial in the federal defamation lawsuit.
Voris is the face of St. Michael’s Media and its news outlet, Church Militant. He started the organization almost 20 years ago, and his presence on the cruise voyage is essential, Lehmann wrote in his motion seeking a delay.
“Defendant Voris is a significant draw for participants, who register in large part to hear his presentations and have an opportunity to meet him for private conversations, meals, and other events,” Lehmann wrote.
The cruise generates substantial revenue for Voris and his organizations. Lehmann wrote that last year’s voyage garnered $128,000.
With the “Retreat at Sea” scheduled for Feb. 4 through Feb. 11, LaPlante agreed to set the trial start back to Feb. 13.
Voris still from video https://twitter.com/Michael_Voris/status/1727102250311733320
“Sometimes it takes very horrible events, even at your own hand, to surface certain things that need to be faced,” Voris said.
Lehmann declined to comment when asked how the sudden change in Voris’ employment status might impact the defamation case.
The delay of the trial date might be the last bit of good news for Voris’ defense.
Both Voris former Church Militant personality Christine Niles are now personally under court order to produce evidence de Laire claims they have been hiding since the case started in 2021. Lawyers for de Laire say the two sat on incriminating texts and emails, destroyed evidence, and even interfered with the testimony of Marc Balestrieri, the key witness who has once again disappeared, according to court records.
Niles and Voris have until Dec. 5 to file statements under oath attesting they have made good faith efforts to find and hand over the evidence or face serious sanctions, like automatically losing the case and setting up a trial for the damages they will have to pay de Laire.
“Failure to comply with this court order, or failure to make the required productions referenced above, could result in entry of a default judgment against one or more defendants,” LaPlante wrote in his Nov. 16 order.
But since they’re both out at Church Militant, it remains to be seen if Niles and Voris can even comply with LaPlante’s order. Niles resigned Nov. 9, and Voris was pushed out Nov. 21. The uncertainty creates the possibility for yet another delay in the trial. Lawyers for de Laire have repeatedly accused Voris and Church Militant of stalling in order to drive up his legal costs.
As of Nov. 22, there were no disclosures on file in the United States District Court in Concord that Niles and Voris are no longer employed at Church Militant. Interestingly, the allegedly defamatory articles about de Laire no longer appear on Church Militant’s website.
Voris and Niles resignations unexplained
Voris’ ouster from Church Militant came as a shock to his legions of fans. The controversial media mini-magnate isn’t saying why he’s no longer leading the organization, other than to get help with some sort of dark and ugly secret that’s impaired his life.
The board statement, which they call “fully transparent,” simply states Voris violated the morality clause and is seeking help for his health.
But Niles, who has been with Voris and Church Militant for almost a decade, dropped hints in a video of her own put out Tuesday night. Niles claims she resigned on Nov. 9 by bringing a damning letter to the board detailing Voris’ transgressions, but she refused in the video to say what they were.
“I’m not in the business of detraction,” Niles said.
Christine Niles still from video https://twitter.com/ChristineNiles1/status/1727120238721048950
Niles did offer that Voris seemed to have undergone a personality change in recent years, including a seeming loss of fervor for his very public faith. Voris stopped attending the mandatory Church Militant prayer sessions, she claimed, as well as committing whatever misconduct that is seemingly at the center of the sudden resignations.
Niles did say Voris’ actions have hurt and scandalized people at Church Militant.
“To say that I am heartbroken and furious is an understatement. There’s a lot of anger, there is a great deal of anger over this,” Niles said.
But why now?
The resignation mystery is unfolding as the de Laire lawsuit appears to be going poorly for Voris, with new allegations surfacing that he used Church Militant money to buy Balestrieri’s testimony with an interest-free loan, and then threatened Balestrieri when it seemed his testimony could hurt the defense.
Voris and former Church Militant writer Anita Carey were scheduled to go to trial in September in de Laire’s lawsuit. Church Militant as an entity is also a defendant in the case. Voris’ attempts to hide key facts and witnesses have already delayed the start of the trial, according to court records.
Rev. de Laire, the judicial vicar for the Manchester New Hampshire Diocese, sued Voris after Church Militant published videos and articles attacking de Laire as incompetent, emotionally unbalanced, and considered a “troublemaker” by his superiors in Rome.
Balestrieri is a canon lawyer with a penchant for secrecy. In a recent deposition under oath, Voris himself called Balestrieri “squirrelly” when it comes to matters of privacy. Since he wants to protect his image with Church officials he works with, Balestrieri is loath to have it known he has been a secret Church Militant author and source for years, Voris said.
“Marc’s great overarching concern was always being worried that his providing information — sometimes extraordinarily sensitive information — on all kinds of cases — that he was always very squirrelly about any of that being found out … He was always — for obvious reasons, because of retaliation and, you know, not viewed as trustworthy by, you know, individuals in the Church who would care about that sort of thing,” Voris testified in a recent deposition.
Lawyers for de Laire used the fact Voris hid Balestrieri as one of the arguments for a summary judgment, essentially asking for a finding by a judge instead of a jury in his favor. By the time the summary judgment question was heading for a hearing, Balestrieri had already been added to the lawsuit as a defendant and found in default.
Balestrieri repeatedly dodged process servers for months, at one point actually running into the woods to evade a server, prompting LaPlante to declare him liable for the defamation last year. Assuming the case ever gets to a jury, Balestrieri will automatically be on the hook for damages no matter what happens to Voris.
But it was the June 15 summary judgment hearing that continues to cause problems for Voris. After being unfindable for months, Balestrieri made a surprise appearance at that hearing claiming he was ready to set the record straight. The day before the hearing, Balestrieri emailed the court announcing his intention to challenge the default judgment and tell his side of the story.
“(He wished to) ‘have my day in court’ to defend myself against the false accusations of fact and claims that have been asserted by more than one party against me,” Balestrieri wrote.
This spelled trouble for Voris.
Good friends make bad loans
With the disclosure that Balestrieri is the man behind the disputed articles revealed in early 2022, a mutual panic seems to have set in, according to newly released evidence.
Voris needed Balestrieri’s sources, the people he relied on to write the articles about de Laire. At the same time, Balestrieri needed to keep his name off the lawsuit. Though Balestrieri has been named as the author in court documents filed in the spring of 2022, he was not yet named as a defendant in the lawsuit. That would happen in October of 2022 over Voris’ objections.
New evidence shows Voris not only hid that Balestrieri wrote the articles, but he hid the fact Balestrieri was heavily involved in the early days of the legal defense.
When de Laire sent Church Militant a letter demanding a retraction in January of 2019, soon after publication, the Church Militant response letter was drafted by Balestrieri, according to new evidence. Balestrieri didn’t sign the letter, though. Voris signed the response sent to de Laire’s attorneys, giving the impression he wrote the letter and not Balestrieri.
Voris would later acknowledge in his August deposition that he presumed Balestrieri had been communicating with his lawyers when they drafted the original answer to de Laire’s lawsuit.
With pressure mounting, Voris and Balestrieri had a meeting at Voris’ house in June of 2022. During the heated conversation, Voris demanded Balestrieri divulge his sources. Balestrieri was hesitant, because his sources who allegedly called de Laire’s ability, competence, mental state, and general character into question were involved in delicate canonical matters like marriage and annulment cases.
“[W]ell, you know, Marc, these are your sources and if they won’t step up, well, then you have to,” Voris said, according to his August deposition.
Voris testified that he had been “forceful” in this conversation and had raised his voice at Balestrieri.
Yet, during this contentious meeting, it was Church Militant as a corporation, not Voris personally, that loaned Balestrieri the $65,000, according to the loan agreement filed in court. The interest-free loan was to be paid back by the end of 2022, but otherwise carried no restriction.
When asked under oath, Voris said Church Militant giving Balestrieri a loan in the midst of an argument about sources was simply a “coincidence of time.”
Communications between Voris and Balestrieri since handed over indicate the canon lawyer and ghostwriter was struggling to pay medical bills for his ailing mother.
After Balestrieri was added to the lawsuit as a defendant, and the matter started to attract attention on Catholic social media, a worried Balestrieri texted Voris in November of 2022. Voris’ response was to remind Balestrieri about the loan.
“Also, you should know, that what I presume is going to be a failure to repay as agreed, we are likely going to have to lay off at least one person. You agreed to pay the $70K and so far haven’t,” Voris texted on Nov. 28 2022.
Brother Andre’s choice
Whatever else can be said about “Brother” Andre Marie Villarubia, head of the Richmond Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, he is a man of conviction.
The Richmond Slaves splintered from the Still River, Massachusetts Slaves in the 1980’s over disputes about watering down founder Rev. Leonard Feeney’s message. Still River leaders sought recognition within the Church, and that meant toning down their interpretation of“No Salvation Outside The Church,” which got Feeney excommunicated.
The Richmond Slaves didn’t want recognition if it meant giving up their beliefs. The group started the St. Benedict Center with an order for men and women, as well as a school. Villarubia took over as leader around 2010.
“Brother” Andre Villarubia in 2019. Photo by Damien Fisher
He had been part of the Richmond Slaves efforts for accommodation with the Manchester Diocese, agreeing in 2009 to disavow the open anti-semitism in the Slaves’ prior writings. In exchange, Manchester gave the group permission to have a traditional Latin Mass celebrated, assuming they could find a priest in good standing.
But “No Salvation Outside the Church” continued to cause friction for the Slaves. Villarubia appealed to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in Rome, basically arguing he and the other Richmond Slaves should be free to hold to their interpretation of the doctrine.Even after the CDF rejected this argument and considered the matter closed in 2016, the group persisted in holding to the Feeneyite message.
Unbowed, Villarubia raised money to fight the precepts in Rome. His canon lawyer? Balestrieri.
Just weeks after the precepts were issued in January of 2019, Voris was in New Hampshire interviewing Villarubia, and Church Militant published video reports and stories about the controversy and attacking de Laire as an incompetent.
Among the questionable facts Voris/Balestrieri included in their articles is the fact de Laire owns a million dollar house. The articles question how the priest could afford the luxury home.
Rev. de Laire is assigned to a parish in Manchester, and lists that address as his residence. The home, in nearby Amherst, was bought for his elderly mother. The de Laire family are heirs to a French perfume fortune, a fact seemingly missed by Voris and Balestrieri.
Balestrieri worked on getting the precepts overturned. But the appeal was rejected by Rome after Balestrieri missed the deadline.
Marc Balestrieri
The lawsuit against Church Militant snared Villarubia, requiring him to sit for depositions with de Laire’s lawyers. The March deposition Villarubia gave under oath this year included a missile aimed at Voris.
In June of 2022, around the time a shouting Voris gave a worried Balestrieri a $65,000 loan, Villarubia learned about Balestrieri’s authorship of the alleged defamatory articles for the first time. This obvious conflict of interest unnerved Villarubia enough that he decided to fire Balestrieri, according to the deposition. That’s when Balestrieri made a stunning claim.
“And I said this is a problem, that Michael Voris said you wrote the article and you’re our canon lawyer. And [Balestrieri] said ‘I didn’t write the article.’ He vehemently denied authorship of the article,” Villarubia said during his March deposition. “I simply thought that that should be on the record. Obviously, Marc’s chosen not to defend himself, but I have this information, and I thought that this should be part of the record.”
Villarubia further speculated Voris might have written the article with Balestrieri in a collaborative effort. Either way, the question was now open if Voris lied when he originally claimed authorship of the articles, or when he later put the onus on Balestrieri.
Welch!
Voris knew Balestrieri planned to say something at the June 15 hearing, and he worried it would be a denial about writing the articles.
The hearing transcript depicts an odd scene in which Balestrieri does not appear to understand the court proceedings, does not realize he is about to be served with subpoenas to give a deposition, and refuses to give the court his address, claiming to live a “nomadic” lifestyle.
Soon, however, it is agreed during the hearing that Balestrieri will sit for a July 12 deposition with de Laire’s attorneys and answer questions under oath.
A now concerned Voris, despite claiming for months he had no way to contact Balestrieri, arranged for a staffer to send Balestrieri a text he composed with a warning.
“Marc – you are committing perjury. You know you wrote that article. What you don’t know is this morning we found proof – your digital fingerprints – all totally documented – on that article. Remember the email address – TomMoore@Churchmilitant.com.? We have all the receipts. You go through with this and we will rain down on you publicly. You are a liar, and a Welch,” Voris wrote.
Knowing what Villarubbia said about Balestrieri’s denial, Voris wanted proof that Balestrieri was the original author. So on June 15 he ordered his Church Militant team, including Niles and Chief of Staff Simon Rafe, to find the Google Drive drafts, emails, text messages, and other evidence Niles and others had previously claimed could not be found or did not exist, according to court records.
Sometime between receiving the “Welch” text and the July 12 deposition date, Balestrieri had second thoughts. On July 11 he let de Laire’s lawyers know he would not show up, and he since has gone missing again.
Lawyers for de Laire argue the “Welch” text was a clear threat to the publicity adverse Balestrieri, and the prior Nov. 28 text about the loan show Voris has been attempting to manipulate Balestrieri and his testimony.
Voris denied he was threatening Balestrieri, but insisted in his August deposition that he was concerned for the elusive canon lawyer’s soul.
“[I was] troubled he was going to perjure himself,” Voris testified. “First of all, that’s a sin to take an oath before God and then lie. It’s a mortal sin, which is in the category of pretty darn bad in Catholicism.”
But in trying to save his friend from sin, and prove he didn’t write the article himself, the new evidence Voris turned over after the June 15 hearing was a double-edged sword. It showed the court Voris had been hiding evidence, and might be hiding more.
After Balestrieri skipped his deposition, the court ordered Voris and Niles to sit for new depositions, during which more evidence that had been hidden came to light.
Deposition of a law school graduate
Niles, Church Militant’s senior investigative reporter and unofficial in-house counsel, was now fully enmeshed in the lawsuit when she sat for her Aug. 9 court-ordered deposition.
Niles provided the court in June with a signed affidavit detailing the evidence she had recently found in a Church Militant Google Drive that proves Balestrieri’s authorship. In her affidavit, Niles explained she never turned over the drafts proving Balestrieri wrote the articles because she forgot to check the Google Drive.
“In all sincerity, I forgot that he did not email me the article, but shared it through his Google Drive under his alternate email tommoore@churchmilitant.com,” Niles wrote in her affidavit.
But, Niles’ affidavit also raised a new set of problems for Church Militant.
Her signed statement made clear Niles was not Church Militant’s lawyer, in-house or any other kind. But Voris had refused, in earlier depositions, to answer questions about his conversation with Niles, citing attorney-client privilege.
Niles would need to answer questions about her work status, as well as the evidence on Balestrieri she found after June 15, evidence she and Voris had previously claimed didn’t exist.
During her Aug. 9 deposition, Niles confirmed that she graduated law school, and then clerked for a state supreme court justice for two years. Then, she gave up her law practice to be a stay-at-home mom.
Niles never argued a case in court, never represented a defendant, and when she moved to Michigan, where Church Militant is headquartered, never joined that state’s Bar Association. Niles is a licensed attorney in another state, though her status is inactive.
Around 2014, Niles turned her part-time copyediting and proofreading skills into a job at Church Militant, and moved to Michigan to launch her career. In that time, she testified, she acted as a sort of informal legal adviser, but she was never Church Militant’s attorney.
But it was her next admission that really tripped up Church Militant’s defense. When asked if she had any communication with Balestrieri in 2022 concerning the lawsuit, Niles said she had sent him at least one text. She had never turned that over doing the discovery phase because she “was never asked,” even though de Laire’s team had been seeking such communication for months.
At this point, Church Militant attorneys Kathleen Klaus and Neil Nicholson called for a short break in Niles’ deposition. When they restarted ten minutes later, the lawyer handed over pages of text messages from Nile’s phone showing that she and Balestrieri engaged in multiple conversations about the lawsuit over the course of several months.
“These text messages, in addition to testimony of Niles and Voris, show that Defendants have been working and coordinating with Balestrieri concerning information to be disclosed (or, more accurately, withheld) from Father de Laire throughout the duration of this entire litigation,” de Laire’s lawyers wrote.
Klaus and Nicholson quit the case the day after Niles’ deposition.
“Recent events that have transpired in the litigation have created an unwaivable conflict between Counsel and their clients … Counsel believes this conflict bars them from taking any further action on behalf of their clients,” Klaus and Nicholson wrote to the court.
But Randazza had a reputation for more than fighting for freedom of speech. In 2018, he pleaded guilty to violating the attorney code of ethics in Nevada in a case in which he allegedly solicited pay-offs from companies his porn production client was considering suing.
Marc-randazza, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
“There needs to be a little gravy for me,” Randazza emailed an opposing attorney in one lawsuit. “And it has to be more than the $5K you were talking about before. I’m looking at the cost of at least a new Carrera in retainer deposits after circulating around the adult entertainment expo this week. I’m gonna want at least used BMW money.”
Randazza has gone on to represent the likes of Alex Jones and neo-Nazi Andrew Anglin.
LaPlante ordered Randazza off the case last month after de Laire objected. It is not known why Randazza is not being allowed to represent Voris, as LaPlante’s order is under seal. The court docket states there is a new, pending ethics complaint filed against Randazza in another jurisdiction.
That leaves Lehmann as the sole attorney for Church Militant. Lehmann is well-respected in New Hampshire legal circles, but he’s no stranger to culture war skirmishes. He’s the lead attorney for a mother suing the Manchester, New Hampshire School District over her child’s social gender-transitioning. Lehmann was also on former President Donald Trump’s legal team in a failed effort to keep Trump off the New Hampshire presidential primary ballot. When LaPlante agreed to reschedule the trial to accommodate the cruise, he also noted Lehmann’s need to now get up to speed as the lead attorney.
___
___
Damien Fisher is married to Simcha Fisher, who is the owner of this site. Simcha Fisher is an independent contractor for Parable Magazine, which is owned by the Diocese of Manchester.
Dakota Bateman was a new Catholic, in love with the Eucharist, when she decided to go to the Franciscan University at Steubenville.
“It was the Catholic university, and my faith had been extremely important to me,” Bateman said.
Bateman, now 27, found her faith on her own after years of trauma, according to documents she shared. She had suffered through years of childhood abuse, including sexual abuse, making her especially vulnerable to predators.
It was at FUS where she met Fr. Benedict Jurchak, 45, a man who would become in short order her confessor, her spiritual advisor, and then her abuser. But even after Bateman came forward with her abuse in 2018, the Franciscan Friars of the Third Order Regular, also known as TOR, continued to put Jurchak into active ministry, reassigning him twice after she complained. Jurchak may or may not have been given what amounts to a written warning about his abuse.
Officials with the TOR declined requests for comment about Jurchak, his status, and his continued active ministry. We were unable to reach Jurchak about this story.
According to a police report, a letter from a canon lawyer who investigated the matters, and other documents provided by Bateman, Jurchak used his position and knowledge to groom her. Jurchak would eventually admit to a vague “boundary violation,” and the order continues to stand by him. Although Batemen reported his sexual assault to the police, to his superior, and to the diocese, the TOR issued a statement that there was a “single allegation” against him that “could not be substantiated.”
Bateman struggled with suicidal ideation as a teen, as well as anxiety, depression and eating disorders, as a result of her childhood abuse. She also had difficulty forming trusting relationships. Jurchak knew all of this.
The two became close while she attended FUS. He was her spiritual director while she was a student there, and they remained close after she graduated in 2015. Throughout their relationship as friends before and after graduation, Bateman said Jurchak kept using his knowledge of her past to break down protective aspects of the relationship. Looking back, there were many red flags, she said.
“He kept moving the boundaries,” she said.
In February of 2018, Jurchak visited Bateman at her home in upstate New York. During this visit, Jurchak got physical with Bateman. Based on the journals Batemen kept at the time, Jurchak engaged in unwanted sexual touching, behavior that is considered assault by law enforcement. These assaults continued over several days. Bateman froze during one of the initial assaults, a holdover from her past trauma, something Jurchak knew about.
“He used my previous assault as a roadmap. He did exactly what the guy before previously did,” she said in a video.
In June of 2018, four months later, Bateman contacted Jurchak’s provincial superior, who confronted Jurchak, according to the canon lawyer’s letter. Jurchak denied that anything took place. The matter was dropped until February of 2019, when Bateman contacted her local diocese.
At this post, Jurchak’s superior again spoke to him, and the priest denied wrongdoing. Instead, Jurchak told his superior that Bateman “came on to him” during the Feb. 2018 incident. He claimed her behavior forced him to stop offering her spiritual direction. Jurchak’s superior decided at this point to let the matter drop again.
Bateman next went to police in June 2019 to report the sexual assaults, but that investigation ended up being flawed. Bateman was initially unable to get a copy of the report she made to a detective for more than a month, and when she finally got it, she saw that it was full of errors and missing key details about the assaults.
Bateman engaged the help of JoAnna Brezee, an advocate with Vera House, a sexual and domestic assault crisis center in Syracuse, New York, and together they went to police to straighten out the report. The detective they spoke with was aggressive and confrontational, according to Brezee.
“I believe a report was never written and when she called asking for it, he found his old notepad and made one based off the few things he wrote down,” Brezee would later write in an email to a supervisor.
Though police declined to prosecute, the TOR finally responded to Bateman’s allegation by hiring a civil lawyer to investigate the case in August of 2019, more than a year since the allegations were first made and after the order twice decided that Jurchak was not at fault.
But Bateman said the order’s civil lawyer made a hash of the investigation and got major details wrong.
“I don’t think there is a single thing from him that is correct,” she said.
The result of the civil lawyer’s investigation was a finding that Bateman’s allegations were “unsubstantiated.” However, under pressure from the Altoona-Johnstown Diocese, a canon lawyer was brought in to investigate. This canon lawyer found her story credible, said Batemen, and would recommend punishment for Jurchak.
“For my part, I would note that “unsubstantiated” and “not credible” are two markedly different things,” the canon lawyer wrote.
Bateman provided us with a copy of the letter the canon lawyer wrote to Fr. Joseph Lehman, the head of the TOR. The canon lawyer’s name is redacted from the letter. According to the letter, Jurchak lied during the initial conversations with his superiors about Bateman’s allegations. He would later admit to “boundary violations,” but not the sexual assaults.
“Father Jurchak does not seem to dispute that he spent time alone with Ms. Bateman in her home over the course of several days, in fact, he acknowledged that a boundary violation of some sort occurred and texted Ms. Bateman to apologize for being ‘gross,’” the canon lawyer wrote. “This all happened despite the fact — and one could reasonably argue, perhaps because of the fact — that he was well aware of Ms. Bateman’s vulnerabilities around healthy boundaries and her fears of being rejected/abandoned.”
The canon lawyer stated that Jurchak was oblivious to the fact he had created the situation, and recommended he had a penal precept placed on file. The penal precept would be a written warning that if another such incident took place, he could be suspended, according to the letter. (A penal precept is intended as a canonical procedural step used to establish a situation in which superiors can punish a situation if it repeats. It’s intended to be used when a priest commits problematic behavior that can be corrected.) The canon lawyer also recommended that the TOR pay for Bateman’s therapy.
Whether or not Jurchak received the penal precept is unknown. Jurchak had been a vocations director while at FUS, recruiting men for the order. Soon after the investigation, he was assigned to a parish in the Altoona Johnstown Diocese in Pennsylvania. When Bateman found out he had been reassigned, she contacted the diocese, and Jurchak was again moved, this time to be the chaplain at the Armed Forces Retirement Home in Washington, D.C.
Bateman did not plan to speak publicly about the abuse, but after less than a year of treatment, the TOR stopped paying for her therapy in February of this year. Bateman said this was done by Lehman after she told him to stop contacting her directly.
“They cut me off after I asked Fr. Lehman to stop emailing me and talk to my therapist,” she said.
Lehman had been contacting her to keep tabs on her during the therapy that the TOR was paying for.
The contact from Lehman was triggering for her, especially as she got closer to the anniversary of her assault in February. When Lehman decided to cut off the funds for her therapy, it triggered a relapse of her anorexia, requiring hospital stays in February of 2019 and June of 2021.
Bateman said the TOR was using money as way of controlling her, a form of economic abuse. She said that she once had to wait to seek treatment for her anorexia while Lehman discussed the matter with someone else.
“He had to think about it and talk to somebody and then get back to me,” she said.
Bateman decided to stop requesting that the TOR pay for her treatment, in order to avoid being controlled by them. When she got out of treatment for anorexia this year, Bateman went public with her story of being abused by Jurchak. Lehman’s only response so far has been to issue a statement on April 29 about Jurchak’s current assignment.
According to the TOR statement, Jurchak is no longer at the Armed Forces Retirement Home because of Bateman.
“In 2019, Father Benedict had been temporarily removed from ministry when a single allegation of sexual misconduct involving an adult woman was reported to the Franciscans,” Lehman’s statement reads. “In the following years, both the police and an independent lay investigator reviewed the claim and found that it could not be substantiated.”
Lehman went on to say that because of the public outcry over Jurchak, the priest had to be removed from his assignment. Bateman called that statement that statement a slap in the face.
“They’re pretty much calling me a liar. He said that it ‘can’t be substantiated.’ He keeps hanging on to ‘unsubstantiated.’ But there’s a huge difference between ‘unsubstantiated’ and ‘not credible,’” she said.
“They don’t care about keeping people safe. The TOR only seem to care about their image, and whether their priests can continue the work,” Batemen said in her video.
It was the archdiocese of Washington DC, and not the TOR, that made the decision to remove Jurchak from the nursing home.
The TOR has a history of trying to cover for its own. Fr. Samuel Tiesi, a revered campus minister who died in 2001, was reportedly a serial sexual abuser who targeted female students. According to a report in the National Catholic reporter, everyone who could have stopped Tiesi knew about the abuse.
“The school administration and Tiesi’s religious superiors knew of the friar’s grooming and assault of female university students for years but took no action. Students who reported the abuse to university officials tell of being chastised, demeaned and made to feel they were betraying the friars and God,” according to the report.
Dave Morrier, a former priest, has been sentenced to probation for sexual battery for sexually assaulting an FUS student.
Bateman said the TOR needs to fix its culture that sustains abusers and punishes victims who come forward.
“At this point, the TOR needs to completely reform how they handle these things. He was removed by Washington; he wasn’t removed by the TORs. There’s no guarantee anyone is going to be safe from him.”
Bateman is still practicing her faith. She is still in love with the Eucharist. And she is still struggling.
“My faith has been important to me since I converted,” she said. “My faith has been the thing keeping me alive all these years. I couldn’t walk away from that. But it’s hard.”
“The viability of Texas Right to Life is at risk,” claims a lawsuit filed this week by Elizabeth Graham, Jim Graham’s wife.
The lawsuit claims that Texas Right to Life, which was the major force behind the controversial “Texas Heartbeat Act” (SB8), has been in tatters and is rife with infighting after Graham’s husband was forced to resign in October. Elizabeth Graham claims board member Rich DeOtte is using her husband’s disgrace to seize control of the organization, humiliate her, and force her out.
“The purpose of these efforts is to, quite obviously, elevate himself as ‘saviour’ of the organization, take over its helm, and lead its operations,” Elizabeth Graham’s attorney, Brock Akers, wrote in the lawsuit filed on Tuesday.
DeOtte did not respond to a request for comment on Thursday. Walter Pate, a Texas Right to Life board member and another named defendant, declined to comment when reached.
“There is a suit that’s been filed and I cannot speak about it. I don’t trust the press. I don’t trust the press,” Pate said.
The lawsuit includes 50 named plaintiffs: Elizabeth Graham and various stakeholders of the group. That list includes Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller in his personal capacity. Miller did not respond to a request for comment.
Former Texas Governor Rick Perry was also listed as a plaintiff in the original complaint, but was removed in the amended complaint filed this week.
When Jim Graham was forced to resign as president of Texas Right to Life in October after his affair with Beckman was revealed, Graham’s wife Elizabeth, who was then serving as vice president, took his place. The lawsuit seeks an injunction against the organization from ousting her as president.
The lawsuit claims that DeOtte started maneuvering to get Elizabeth Graham removed as soon as she became president. He declared himself chairman of the board, a position that previously did not exist, and he put Teresa Doyle into an interim executive director’s position, according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit states that Elizabeth Graham, as president, pushed for severance payments for her husband after his affair threatened both her marriage and the organization. The narrative in the lawsuit is somewhat unclear, but seems to imply that DeOtte used those severance negotiations as leverage to cement his new position as chairman.
Throughout these weeks of strife with the board, Elizabeth Graham was also dealing with the emotional devastation wrought by her husband’s affair, according to the lawsuit. Those close to her urged her to take time off.
“Plaintiff Elizabeth Graham was feeling the need and interest in taking such time off, but was nervous about the continued machinations of the Board members, much of which was going on behind her back,” the lawsuit states.
She was finally assured by Doyle and by another named defendant, human resources consultant and board member Jeff Lowery, that she could safely take time off and return to her job with Texas Right to Life, according to the lawsuit. She was directed by the board’s outside attorney, David Gibbs, not to spend any Texas Right to Life money while she was away.
Elizabeth Graham went on sabbatical from Dec. 14 through March 14. Within weeks of her departure, Lowery raised Doyle’s salary by $35,000, and also raised the salary of nearly all Texas Right to Life employees. Texas Right to Life is a non profit and is, according to the lawsuit, dependent entirely on donations.
“Without an official Board meeting, the raise for new Executive Director Teresa Doyle was put in place along with raises for all other members of the TxRTL staff. Everyone, that is, except Plaintiff Elizabeth Graham,” the lawsuit states. Graham, in fact, was demoted while she was gone.
Elizabeth Graham returned from her sabbatical and found that not only had she alone not gotten a raise, and must now report to Doyle.
“Plaintiff was dumbfounded, hurt, and left wondering how the events which came to light in October, of which she was frankly a victim not a participant, could have resulted in this turn of events,” the lawsuit states.
Before she returned to work in March, Gibbs told Elizabeth Graham that she could not go to the office until she met with Doyle and Lowery to discuss her newly demoted role. Graham was also told the annual board meeting, set for this week, would now take place offsite from the Texas Right to Life offices in Houston, which she took as an affront.
Elizabeth Graham responded by getting her own lawyer, and on March 22, Gibbs sent Graham a letter terminating her employment. The lawsuit accuses DeOtte and others of violating Texas Right to Life’s bylaws by firing her without following the correct procedures. She is seeking an injunction against Texas Right to Life over her termination. A hearing on the injunction is set for April 12 in the 165th District Court in Houston.
The struggle for control of Texas Right to Life echoes a similar upheaval at the organization headed by Kari Beckman, Jim Graham’s partner in the illicit affair that led to his own ouster.
Rich Beckman, the husband of disgraced founder and former Executive Director of Regina Caeli and Veritatis Splendor Kari Beckman, has resigned, and Nicole Juba is now the Executive Director.
The Board said in a letter to RCA families and staff:
“The Board will initiate an independent forensic audit to determine if there were any financial irregularities and take appropriate actions based on those findings.”
The changes they’ve announced are making some parents consider coming back to Regina Caeli.
“If they do what they say they’ll do, I’ll be a happy camper,” said Debbie Sercely, a Texas mother of three and former RCA tutor.
“The biggest problem I had was with their financial opacity. There wasn’t a lot of clarity about where the money [for Veritatis Splendor] was going to come from or how it was going to be spent. There was a lot of, ‘It’s all part of RCA, so it’ll be fine,’ Well, no,” Sercely said.
RCA had been accused, in an anonymous letter to the board and in a formal complaint sent to the IRS, of financial misconduct. It charged that, while she headed Regina Caeli, Executive Director Kari Beckman used Regina Caeli as her personal bank account, used RCA funds for Veritatis Splendor expenses without the knowledge or consent of donors, required RCA employees to work for Veritatis Splendor, and made personal use of a luxury home and vehicle paid for by Regina Caeli funds while promoting Veritatis Splendor. Regina Caeli was listed as a parent company of Veritatis Splendor, and the finances of the two organizations were apparently merged, although the Veritatis Splendor project is a planned community that did not and would not benefit the homeschool hybrid academy in any way.
The purchase for the land on which Veritatis Splendor was to be built was made with a loan from James Faber, a Regina Caeli board member. According to the letter from the board, Faber has been named the new interim board president.
The letter states that “a generous benefactor, with full knowledge of Mrs. Beckman’s situation, has emerged to make the separation of Regina Caeli and Veritatis Splendor (VS) a reality. ”
“This donor will be purchasing the remaining land at VS, which will provide the funds that will repay all RCA expenditures for VS. VS will become its own non-profit organization completely separate from RCA. This will relieve RCA from all financial burdens with regard to VS. This separation will allow each organization to successfully pursue its own mission. The Board is committed to providing periodic updates as to the progress of these efforts to ensure accountability and transparency,” the letter said.
More than one family expressed concerns that, even if Kari Beckman were to be removed, the current board was hand-selected by Beckman to do her bidding; but the letter says the board is soliciting nominations from families “to reconstitute the Board of Directors.”
The letter ends:
“Regina Caeli was not built upon one person, but has continued to grow and develop by virtue of the talents and sacrifice of all our staff, families, tutors, assistants, volunteers, and, of course, our children. Regina Caeli is bigger than one person. Let this now carry us forward to sustain the mission of training the mind to form the soul.”
The IRS complaint against Regina Caeli Academy was mailed late last week. Federal law prohibits the IRS office from commenting on private taxpayer matters, but if a criminal case results from an investigation, that information will become public record.
Sercely said she had had some hesitations about Regina Caeli when she first joined. She wasn’t happy that their history curriculum included glowing praise of Robert E. Lee, and she describes their dress code as misogynistic, focusing heavily on females covering their bodies, and ignoring the need for males to learn to control their eyes.
“Because of that, there have definitely been some families that have hesitated about joining Regina Caeli. That was kind of a red flag,” Sercely said.
“But I’m really hopeful that, with a significant change in leadership, we might see some real changes in some of the policies that are trying to out-Catholic the pope,” she said.
She said that the format of RCA works very well with her young family, with classroom days providing the structure and stability they need, while still allowing for flexibility and down-time.
No change for Veritatis Splendor
Yesterday, Veritatis Splendor sent a letter to its mailing list reassuring “Viculus familes” that there will be no interruption in its mission.
“We want to assure our Viculus families that the mission of Veritatis Spendor will continue without interruption, and that if anything, this shows just how important the work of this community really is. Bishop Strickland, our clergy and the seminarians are unwavering in their support for VS and have assured us that they will be united with us to keep up our fight for the good.”
The letter also informs participants of the donor referenced in the RCA board letter.
“You should be aware that a generous benefactor, with full knowledge of Kari’s situation, has emerged in the midst of this great challenge to ensure that the plans for VS are not hindered, stalled or delayed in any way,” the Veritatis Splendor letter said.
It is not clear how many people have actually invested in Veritatis Splendor. One purchase has been confirmed. Plots of land are available for sale for between $90,000 and $250,000. Their fundraiser, whose stated goal was $3.2 million, raised $100,128. It was last updated on April 30 with a conceptual rendering of the oratory.
We called Bishop Strickland’s office for comment, but were told he was “not available this week” and that “nobody in the building has anything to do with Veritatis Splendor.”
Sercely had another reason besides her financial concerns for leaving Regina Caeli, once they announced their affiliation with Veritatis Splendor.
“The reason I will never support that cult is the permanence of the priests. There is no option to remove a priest who is abusive. It’s a breeding ground for grooming and abuse, and I will not contribute one breath of my efforts to allow other people to be abused. Not one red cent, not one nanosecond of my time,” she said.
Sercely is referring to the fact that, in the proposed “village,” there will live a community of priests who are not subject to transfers or re-assignments,” according to the Veritatis Splendor case statement.
These priests will be Oratorians in the tradition of St. Philip Neri. Oratorians are not a religious order; they are secular priests (i.e., they have not made religious vows). Oratorians must have permission from the local bishop to found an Oratory (which is not a parish church), such as the one proposed for Veritatis Splendor; but the community of priests is relatively autonomous. They answer not to the bishop of the diocese in which they live, but to Rome. The bishop has, according to canon law, a duty to be “vigilant” about their spiritual well-being and about the effects of the community in his diocese, but the relationship between the diocese and such communities is not clearly defined.
“With the board of directors saying Regina Caeli and Veritatis Splendaor are completely separate, I’m sobbing, I’m so grateful. We’re seriously considering coming back to Regina Caeli,” Sercely said.
As for the village, one $3 million loan later, not a single structure has yet been built on the land, and the members of Regina Caeli across the nation are left wondering if their homeschool tuition fees and bake sale fundraising dollars paid for the grandiose Tyler, Texas project, or for any of Beckman’s other, more clandestine activities of the past year.
Beckman, who founded the homeschool hybrid Regina Caeli Academy in 2003, sent a letter to the members of Regina Caeli at the end of last week acknowledging “a terrible lapse in judgment with a personal relationship.” Multiple sources confirmed the relationship was with Jim Graham. Beckman and Graham are both married. Beckman said she immediately sought forgiveness through the sacrament of confession, and then, months later, confessed to her husband. She said that she and her husband then both went to the board of Regina Caeli and told them “what had occurred,” and then stepped down as Executive Director.
Shortly before she stepped down, the Board of Directors received an anonymous letter alleging Beckman had carried on an illicit sexual relationship with Graham. Graham was also, until recently, on the Board of Regina Caeli, but his name has recently been removed from that site, along with Kari Beckman’s name. Beckman’s husband remains listed as a board member. Three other board members are no longer listed on the site, and Nicole Juba has been named acting Executive Director.
Texas Right to Life is the organization that launched prolifewhistleblower.com, the tipline website that lets people report abortions in hopes of collecting a $10,000 bounty under the controversial new “Texas Heartbeat Act” (SB8), and Jim Graham has been instrumental in the Texas pro-life movement’s hard shift toward the right. The website has gone offline twice, and now redirects to the Texas Right to Life site, but does not currently function as a tipline. The law, which has undergone several legal challenges, has been unpopular even within some factions of the conservative pro-life community, some of whom view it as anything from distasteful to politically reckless to counter-productive.
“This is two heads of very Catholic organizations. We literally do hold ourselves to a higher standard. And to be lectured about virtue while this was going on . . . unbelievable,” said one Regina Caeli Academy parent and former tutor. She asked not to be identified, for fear of reprisal.
The parent is referring to the fact that Regina Caeli and Veritatis Splendor, including in the very video in which Beckman and Graham both appear, both explicitly framed their organizations as a refuge from the immorality of the secular world. Parents flocked to Regina Caeli in part because it emphasizes the development of personal virtues and traditional values like chastity and self-control.
“The fact that my kids’ tuition was funding their affair,” the parent said, and then attached a “vomit” emoji to their message.
“We essentially bought them a ranch.”
But it’s not merely a matter of spiritual hypocrisy that distresses this and other Regina Caeli families. The anonymous letter-writer told us they also filed two complaints with the IRS on November 12 asking for an investigation of Beckman’s possible financial misuse of Regina Caeli funds. The complaints accused Regina Caeli of “using assets for personal gain” and “questionable fundraising practices.”
As one RCA parent put it, “We essentially bought them a ranch.”
But the alleged financial malfeasance goes deeper than that. The letter-writer alleged, “Mrs. Beckman uses Regina Caeli as her personal bank account” and that Beckman hand-selected the board to do her bidding, and deliberately hid her financial activities from the families who supplied the money she allegedly spent. Regina Caeli’s most recent tax forms list their total assets in 2018 at $4.2 million, with $3.4 million in liabilities.
The letter to the IRS enumerates four major complaints involving Regina Caeli Academy and Veritatis Splendor:
-That Regina Caeli Academy employees were pulled from their RCA jobs to launch and raise funds for Veritatis Splendor;
-that RCA borrowed over $3 million from an RCA board member to finance the property for Veritatis Splendor;
-that the RCA board approved the purchase of a $45,000 Chevy Tahoe for Veritatis Splendor, and has been paying for its insurance, even though the vehicle does not serve Regina Caeli in any way;
-and that the property, purchased by RCA, contains a luxury lodge in which the Beckman family has been living for many months.
The complaint says:
“Fundraising at Regina Caeli was of the utmost importance. Families were required to fundraise in a variety of ways, and were always told that this fundraising was to support the education and mission of Regina Caeli. Of the $423,509.79 that was fundraised between Oct. 20, 2020 and May 21, 2021, how much of that was used for Regina Caeli? How much was used to purchase a piece of land in Winona, Texas so Mrs. Beckman could form a cult?”
The person filing the complaint also had further questions:
“When Regina Caeli Academy used travel and hotel rewards programs for training, campus visits, etc, who reaped the benefits of those massive rewards points? Were those put on Regina Caeli rewards cards, or Mrs. Beckman’s personal rewards cards? Did the Beckman family travel and vacation using those points?
“Is Regina Caeli going to provide Board meeting minutes for the Board meetings where Jim Graham was present as a member of the Board, while the affair was taking place?
“Is Regina Caeli planning to undergo a financial audit? If Mrs. Beckman had such a major lapse in judgement with regards to her personal life, what would prevent her from having a lapse in judgement in the financial affairs of the organization?”
No board member has responded to our repeated calls for comment. Kari Beckman, Rich Beckman, Jim Graham, Nicole Juba, and Regina Caeli and Vertitatis Splendor’s communications offices have not responded to our repeated calls for comment. Bishop Joseph Strickland, an outspoken booster of Veritatis Splendor, was not available for comment.
When Regina Caeli members were first abruptly informed that their school was now an umbrella organization for a quasi-religious megadevelopment in Texas, some complained.
One member said that she and her husband were assured that, at some point, the finances of Regina Caeli Academy and Veritatis Splendor would be separated, but that “these things take time.”
“When I and many other families expressed our surprise and displeasure at this being sprung on us out of nowhere, we were basically told, ‘It’s our organization and we can do whatever the heck we want, and if you don’t like it, there’s the door,'” one former tutor said.
Regina Caeli families were, however, offered the opportunity to buy land at Veritatis Splendor. On August 4, RCA families received a letter from Kari Beckman claiming there has been a “HUGE and overwhelming response to those interested in purchasing lots” which range in price from $90,000 to $140,000 and are between 2 and 5 acres. Beckman reminded prospective buyers that, while the lots are selling quickly, there is no need to build right away after purchasing one, and that lots may be purchased “for primary or vacation/retreat homes.”
The former tutor confirms that she knows just one family who invested $90,000 in Veritatis Splendor land, but said jokingly that the rest of her RCA friends had no interest in accepting Kari Beckman as the head of their homeowner’s association.
“No way, Jose,” she said.
Talking sideways
This isn’t the first time Regina Caeli has been accused of a lack of financial transparency. In 2016, a former RCA member filed a lawsuit alleging that, when he asked to review financial information so he could determine how the school was spending the money their group raised and solicited, the director responded that “it was not RCA’s ‘style’ to provide any financial information, other than the IRS form 990’s.” The suit alleges RCA then retaliated against the entire family for their inquiry. The suit also alleged that RCA ran afoul of Michigan charitable fundraising laws. The lawsuit was settled out of court.
While it’s rare for a member to muster a lawsuit against RCA, it’s common for members and former members to complain that their concerns go unheard, and that they’re routinely bullied into silence under the guise of christian charity.
The school explicitly forbids what it called “murmuring,” allegedly to discourage a spirit of gossip among the families involved.
“Conflict is viewed through a religious lens,” said one former employee. “Instead of taking [complaints] seriously on their merits, this spiritual lens means if you disagree, you’re not just wrong; you’re bad.
“It starts with totally appropriate conflict resolution based on [the book of] Matthew: Go to your brother, etc. Keep things in the proper channels of communication. As a first principle, this is good. However, that morphs into culture. There is this total obsession with not ‘talking sideways’ or gossiping. Don’t talk to anybody about any issues you have, from small to big.
“But most of the families are also employees. So if I have an issue, I only have one person I’m supposed to talk to, and their next person up is Kari, or one person down from up. There is a near obsession with, ‘Who have you talked to about this?’ If you’re mad, talk to that person. That’s good. But it morphs into a hierarchical obsession with being quiet,” the former employee said.
At the same time, the school exerted a tight micromanagement of its members — sometimes insisting on puritanical standards that contrast starkly with what members now know about Beckman’s private behavior.
The school cracked down on staffers who shared photos of themselves in tank tops on social media. There are bizarre stories of moral panic over innocent outings with even the whiff of immorality. A group of Regina Caeli families travelled together to see a production of The Nutcracker, and although it was not an official school outing, they had used the school email to communicate about it, and Regina Caeli heads considered the trip problematic because the tutus worn by the dancers were too short, and deemed the show “soft porn.”
The former employee said that she remembers how Beckman once saw a staff member post on social media about decorating her house for Christmas, and Beckman contacted her to chide her, saying that visible Christmas decorations during the Advent season could cause scandal.
This pervasive straight-laced environment has made the revelations of extramarital misconduct especially hard for RCA members to stomach. Several members recalled that, when they applied to teach for Regina Caeli, they were required to sign a statement of fidelity to the magisterium, and that, during their interview, Regina Caeli recruiters asked them if their marriage was canonically valid, and whether they use contraception.
“Apparently, the sexual ethics of one family was so critical to the culture of the organization, but the fact that the executive director is sleeping with a board member is something that can just be chalked up to spiritual attack,” said one former RCA family who had a position in national leadership.
Multiple sources told us they were willing to speak on the record, but only anonymously, because they feared social or even legal retaliation for what would be perceived as disloyalty. Some RCA families have become adept in creating secret groups to communicate with each under the radar. More than one source has expressed concern that their emails to us may be monitored.
Still worth saving?
While members are reeling from the recent revelations, many hope the good fruits of the school can be rescued from Beckman’s influence. Many parents have described the school as something of a godsend, allowing them both the freedom of homeschooling and the structure of the traditional classroom. Mothers of small children often teach with their babies and toddlers in tow, allowing them to be fully involved with their children’s education while leaning on a supportive and nurturing community.
But others believe the very structure of the program routinely becomes exploitative, and is, in practice, uncomfortably close to a multi-level marketing scheme.
In Regina Caeli’s program, paying members homeschool their own children for three days a week, using a standardized curriculum, and the school provides support and access to tutors and extracurricular activities. Parents who are also tutors receive a discount on the entire program, and all members are expected to fundraise and to recruit new members, in addition to paying tuition. Tuition, which covers two classroom days (for which uniforms are required), ranges from $2,800 per PreK student for a half day to $4,500 per high school student.
There are twenty-three RCA satellite schools throughout the country, and they are all run on precisely the same plan, down to minutiae of how to dress and how to have parties. In practice, a family of four children will tote up a bill of over $10,000 as a base, not counting curriculum or uniforms. Parents can knock that total down by several thousand dollars by working for minimum wage for what can end up being as much as sixty hours a week, not counting the volunteer and fundraising work the family is expected to provide.
As exhausting, frustrating, and dissatisfied as parents were, and despite how frustrated they became with the school’s lack of transparency over how tuition and fundraising money was spent, several parents reported feeling like they had no choice but to continue with the school. A family’s entire educational, social, and spiritual community would be at the school; and they have been told repeatedly that their children’s souls will be in danger if they attempt some other form of schooling. And even if they suspected that wasn’t true, they knew there would be reprisals if they questioned it.
“If you have your seven kids and this is their school, and their friends, the only way you can make it work is by working as a tutor,” said a former employee. “You get paid minimum wage plus a fat tuition discount, and the only way you can make it work is to work there, so you’re really afraid to rock the boat, because it will affect your children.”
The former tutor quoted above said that several moms have told her, “I feel like a battered woman, going back every year.”
A spiritual bouquet and a meal train for Beckman
But Beckman and her supporters have done their best to portray her as the victim in the current scandal.
She said in her letter to RCA members that keeping the secret of her relationship “left me feeling despondent and it began to take a physical toll on my mind and my body.”
She said, “I have been in therapy and have been receiving daily spiritual direction in order to get strong enough to face my shame. My therapist has diagnosed me with Complex PTSD due to the circumstances which led to my fall.”
She said, “I do not expect your forgiveness nor do I expect your understanding. I am struggling to forgive myself and to make sense of what I did. I am sorry this did not come sooner, but honestly, I was not in an emotional place to make good decisions.”
On October 25, RCA families and staff received an email from Nicole Juba, who had at that point asked for increased prayers for Beckman.
“As Mrs. Beckman has started her journey towards recovery, the RCA Board of Directors has become aware of a serious spiritual matter that is the underlying basis for her current physical and emotional suffering. Accordingly, the Board has asked her to take additional time away for both physical and spiritual healing and counseling,” the letter said.
They also requested a meal train for the Beckman family.
Many RCA members are less concerned with Beckman’s personal suffering, though, and more concerned with the fate of Regina Caeli Academy going forward. The anonymous letter writer has written a second letter to the board on November 14, urging them to divest themselves completely of Beckman’s influence.
“Although I am relieved to hear of her separation from the organization, there must be follow up from you specifying that her retirement is permanent and irrevocable. She should no longer have access to her email account. There is no need for her to supervise or have any role in the transition,” the letter said.
The letter calls for Kari Beckman’s husband Rich Beckman to step down as Chairman of the Board, because “many Regina Caeli families have for years believed that the Board of Directors is in place simply to do Mrs. Beckman’s bidding.” The letter writer believes that Kari Beckman is likely to attempt to continue to run Regina Caeli by proxy.
“Board members must be stewards of community trust. The Board has a fiduciary duty to the members of the organization – not to Mrs. Beckman personally. Can all the members of the Board claim they have always acted in the best interest of the mission of Regina Caeli?” the letter asks.
*** NOTE: As of Nov. 16, all comments will automatically go into moderation and must be approved manually. I have many other responsibilities besides monitoring this comment box, and may not be able to approve your comment immediately. Thanks for understanding.
By Damien Fisher with additional reporting by Simcha Fisher
Uwe Lieflander used his position as a youth choir leader, music teacher, and college professor to spend years grooming the child he is accused of sexually assaulting when she became a young adult.
Lieflander’s alleged predation didn’t happen in a vacuum. The members of his small Canadian community, parents of his students, colleagues, and even a priest ignored red flags and explained away the behavior that Lieflander himself likened to grooming, and he was welcomed back to work with children even after the victim said he raped her.
Lieflander, 59, is now a fugitive from justice, having left Canada in 2017 for his native Germany before warrants were issued for his arrest. He now records YouTube travel videos under the name “The Vespa Idiot,” and some of the people and institutions that harbored him have yet to reckon with his abuse.
Lieflander in a 2021 Vespa Idiot video
***
Sam, now in her late 20s, grew up in a large, strict, Catholic family in the Barry’s Bay, Ontario area.
“My whole family are ultra-conservative Catholic,” Sam said.
She said the family practiced a sort of manichaean, patriarchal faith, believing that the body is bad and shameful, and women and children are meant to be silent.
Barry’s Bay in Madawaska Valley is home to a community of Polish immigrants who practiced an old-style form of Catholicism, but in the 1990s that started to change. New groups of traditional-minded Catholics began moving into the rural and isolated region, including apocalyptic novelist Michael O’Brien, and an early iteration of the right-wing Lifesite News.
Some moved to the Madawaska Valley region to escape what they were sure was going to be the end-of-civilization event of Y2K; others came to build a traditional community. It was there, in Barry’s Bay, that Our Lady Seat of Wisdom Academy was founded in 1999. The young college with a handful of students made its place sometimes in the very homes of the local Catholic families, like Sam’s, who allowed the school to hold classes on their property. Sam’s family became enmeshed with the school, and it was Our Lady Seat of Wisdom that employed Lieflander.
Sam agreed to share her story, and supply supporting documentation and contemporaneous witnesses. Her real name will not be used, and some information that could identify her will be obscured in this article.
Our Lady Seat of Wisdom was originally founded to offer one-year degrees for mostly homeschooled students. The school’s unaccredited degrees were generally not recognized by other colleges, and for a long time the school served as a feeder program for larger Catholic colleges such as Christendom, Franciscan University of Steubenville, and Thomas Aquinas College.
The college’s motto is Veritas Vos Liberabit: “The Truth will set you free.”
The school’s program continue to grow. In 2017, the Canadian Ministry of Advanced Education and Skills Development granted the school the right to offer Bachelor’s degrees. And this year, demonstrating the school’s continued growing acceptance by the mainstream community, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Pembroke agreed to allow Our Lady Seat of Wisdom theology professors Scott Nicholson and John Paul Meenan to teach remote catechism classes for the diocese.
Our Lady Seat of Wisdom in 2016
Sam was 15 when she first saw a performance by one of Lieflander’s youth choirs, known as a “Sparrows” choir, at a nearby Catholic parish in the fall of 2008. Lieflander was then a part-time music teacher at Our Lady Seat of Wisdom, and he operated several Sparrows Choirs throughout Ontario. He also founded the Sacred Music Society in Ottawa.
Around 2008, Sam longed to be part of the charismatic Lieflander’s Sparrows choir operating in Barry’s Bay. She wanted to learn about music, but also sought some kind of escape from her deeply dysfunctional home life.
Although she was too young to attend college, she was allowed to join Lieflander’s Sparrows choir, and she also took private lessons for him at the college, which he used as a base for his private work. He also taught at several Catholic schools. He presented himself as a caring person, an “uncle” figure who looked after his students. Sam said there was a pattern of Lieflander forging especially deep connections with vulnerable children like her.
“Once you were one of his favorites, you really felt important,” she said.
Lieflander’s lessons included probing into her home life, and also his trademark method of touching children during rehearsal as part of his teaching method.
“There was a lot of touch,” Sam said about her lessons. Lieflander taught over 14,000 students.
Lieflander is described as a musical genius who could draw out remarkable performances from children. He would place his hands on them as they sang, in order to get them to understand where the sound was coming from.
A few Sparrows parents were uncomfortable with the practice, but most accepted the explanation that touching was necessary to his method, according to our source. He would also have children sit on his lap, and routinely played “chasing” and “grabbing” games with them. Around 2015 and 2016, a small number of parents involved with Lieflander’s choirs pushed for him to stop touching children as part of his singing education.
When a small number of parents confronted Lieflander about his unorthodox teaching style and demanded that he change, Lieflander reportedly pushed back. Lieflander, who liked to consider himself something of a friendly uncle to his students, told the parents he had studied the grooming process of child abusers and determined there were 12 steps abusers used, the source said.
“I do all 11 of them, but not the 12th,” Lieflander reportedly said, according to our source.
Lieflander in a 2021 Vespa Idiot video
The source said so many parents and others let their guards down around Lieflander, in part because he was so open and brazen about his behavior. In retrospect, he may have been bullet proofing himself against any accusations that might come out, our source said.
Eventually, in 2011, the Ottawa Catholic School Board expressed concerns about his habit of touching children during Sparrow choir rehearsals. Rather than stop touching the children, he resigned. His resignation caused a media stir, and parents at one school protested the school board’s actions, saying they did not object to the touching. Lieflander continued leading private Sparrows choirs, and Our Lady Seat of Wisdom continued to employ him.
As Sam and Lieflander’s student-teacher relationship intensified, he began discussing her home and family life in more detail. When she was 16 and 17, Lieflander decided that her family was not up to the task of caring for Sam, and he told her he was going to take greater control of her life, for her own good. Sam’s home life did not improve during the next couple of years, and her mental health spiraled. She started cutting, and Lieflander began encouraging her to run away from home.
At 18 she fled to a relative, but her emotional crisis did not abate, and after several months she went to what was billed as a Catholic rehabilitation facility in Florida. Sam spent two years there before she returned home to Barry’s Bay.
It was 2014, Sam was 21, and numb from her years in Florida at a center that she described as a cult. Severe dysfunction still plagued her family. Soon after she got back, she went to another Sparrows concert and Lieflander picked up with her where he left off, making her feel both special and dependent on him.
“I was still in awe of him,”she said.
She restarted music lessons with Lieflander and told him about her troubles. Lieflander directed her to call him “Dad.” He told her he would make all decisions for her, and that he expected her total obedience.
“He completely took control,” she said.
Over the summer of 2014, his control grew to include threats of emotional isolation if she ever disobeyed him, she said. He also persuaded her she was part of his family. She had to give his home address as her home address, for example, and he would randomly demand she recite it for him.
Lieflander got her to attend Our Lady Seat of Wisdom in the fall for a year, earning one of the one-year degrees the school granted in Christian Humanities. They held hands, and he told her she was his child, and that she was emotionally 11 years old, she said, and he continued to insist she call him “Dad.”
“I am going to let you be the child you were never allowed to be,” Sam recalls him telling her.
He also used the nearness of the school to exert more control over her, Sam said. As a student at Our Lady Seat of Wisdom, she had to check in with him on a daily basis, and he required that she have a bedtime that he set for her, she said. If she displeased him he would put her under a “house arrest,” she said.
As their relationship intensified, he started giving her 20-minute hugs in his office at the school, and had her sit in his lap so he could look down her shirt, she said. The encounters at school behind closed doors felt like a kind of molestation, Sam said. Lieflander told her to keep their relationship private, but at least one other Our Lady Seat of Wisdom staff member noticed an oddness to their relationship. When the subject was broached, the staffer said that the administrative response was: “That’s just Uwe.”
Lieflander in 2021
During her time at the school, Sam sometimes had emotional meltdowns, and Lieflander was allowed at least once to enter her dorm room and “put her to bed.” At the time, the school did not allow men and women to be in each other’s dorms. Only a family member, like a parent, would be allowed. The school denies knowing these bedtime visits happened, but one instance has been confirmed by a witness.
In 2015, Sam graduated with her one-year Christian Humanities diploma and started work in Ottawa as a nanny, but she kept seeing Lieflander, and would go back to the school with him. Lieflander continued to foster a controlling paternal relationship with Sam, telling her she needed him.
“He would say if withdrew his support for even 15 seconds, I would die,” she said.
He ramped up the sexual relationship as well. He started getting her to take her clothes off in front of him, so that he could “help her heal from her wounds,” she said.
“He told me he owns 51 percent of me, and I own 49 percent of me,” Sam said.
The sexual conduct finally escalated to rape, she said. It did not take place on campus. Sam did not want the details of the assault included in the story, but disclosed them in interviews with us, and her story is supported by the criminal charges brought by law enforcement.
During this time she started to self-harm again and she developed an eating disorder. Lieflander kept exerting control over her as a possessive father-figure, she said.
“He would say “I always know what’s best for you and what you want, because I own you and you can’t live without me,” Sam said. “He said I was a nymphomaniac because he was too, I had his DNA because I was his daughter, so I was, too.”
It was cancer that finally disrupted their relationship. Sam was diagnosed with lymphoma in early 2017 and scheduled an appointment for pre-chemotherapy. The woman she had nannied for went to that first appointment to offer support, and it was there Sam told the nurse she was sexually active. Then Sam disclosed to her friend whom she was sexually active with.
“I told her it’s Dad (meaning Lieflander). She freaked,” Sam said.
Sam had been sheltered from the world and naive about sex when she started her relationship with Lieflander. Her friend and her friend’s husband had to sit Sam down and explain to her how wrong Lieflander’s actions were.
“Deep down I knew she was right. It broke me,” Sam said. “People would ask how’s the cancer going. I lost all my hair, but nothing could compare to what I was feeling inside. How’s cancer? Oh right, cancer.”
Once she got her bearings, Sam started telling people about the abuse and rape. This was in May and June of 2017. She wanted to make sure the college knew and could protect any other possible victims. She also started contacting the many parishes where Lieflander still operated Sparrows choirs, to make sure they knew. Sam was aided by a friend, who was able to corroborate that the disclosures were made.
One of Lieflanfder’s attorney’s, Tamara Bubis, an associate with criminal defense law firm Engel & Associates, declined to comment on the case when contacted.
Our Lady Seat of Wisdom responded to Sam’s disclosure by not renewing Lieflander’s contract, she said. The school, in a statement made just days ago, four years after the events, now claims it fired him. The school never followed up with its own investigation or review of Lieflander’s conduct on campus. It did not inform parents or students about the alleged abuse, and it did not contact law enforcement. Lieflander’s Sparrows choirs began shutting down because of Sam’s disclosures, and he left the country in the summer of 2017, and returned to Germany.
One of the people Sam told about the abuse was Fr. Marco Testa, then the pastor at Immaculate Conception Parish in Port Perry. Testa was reportedly supportive and sympathetic when Sam disclosed the alleged abuse, but she later found out that Testa brought Lieflander back for concerts at Immaculate Conception in January of 2018, after he heard allegations that he had groomed and raped her.
Lieflander rehearsing for the Sparrows concert at Immaculate Conception in 2018
Testa is no longer serving at Immaculate Conception. Neil MacCarthy, public relations and communications director for the Archdiocese of Toronto, refused to divulge where Testa is currently residing. MacCarthy claims Testa retired at the end of 2020. MacCarthy declined to comment on the 2018 concert with Lieflander. Testa is reportedly aware we have requested to speak to him, but he has so far not responded.
Fr. Marco and Lieflander at Immaculate Conception in 2018
Sam went to police a few weeks after the January of 2018 concert. Charges were not brought forward until January 2019 when Ottawa police obtained warrants for Lieflander’s arrest.
Lieflander, who has yet to face charges in court, currently posts videos to Youtube about his scooter riding adventures under the handle The Vespa Idiot.
Lieflander in a recent “Vespa Idiot” video
He started a trip from Germany to Africa on his scooter last week, documenting his international journey to Casablanca online. This week he was in the South of France, according to his Youtube videos.
Christine Schintgen, interim president for Our Lady Seat of Wisdom and one of the school’s founders, declined to be interviewed for this story. Schintgen did agree to answer questions submitted via email. Her answers sought to distance the school from Lieflander.
“This was allegedly perpetrated on an alumna, but only after her time as a student at SWC was over. None of the alleged abuse is alleged to have happened while she was a student here. The alleged abuse was brought to our attention after the victim had ceased to be a student at OLSW. The victim did not bring forward any complaints or concerns to us during her time as a student, nor did anyone else,” Schintgen wrote.
Schintgen stated that the school never made any kind of statement about the allegations until the criminal charges were brought, two years after the school was made aware of the alleged abuse.
“We are deeply saddened by this case and the damage it has done to the victim. However, there has been no claim that the abuse happened on campus, and no reason to believe that the College was negligent,” Schintgen wrote.
Schintgen refused to address the alleged grooming that took place on campus when Sam was a student, and she deflected when asked why the school continued to employ Lieflander after the 2011 controversy over his touching students.
“In 2011 Uwe Lieflander resigned from his position with the Ottawa Catholic School Board rather than agree to abide by its policy prohibiting any physical contact between teachers and students. He argued that for certain subjects some contact was necessary, for example to correct posture while singing,” Schintgen wrote. “There was no suggestion that there had been a sexual element in the touch he employed or that he was guilty of sexual misconduct. After this controversy he continued to be employed by a number of schools and churches in the Toronto and Ottawa regions.”
Amanda Grady-Sexton, a domestic and sexual abuse survivors advocate in the United States, said an institution like a college should take clear steps when it learns about abuse.
“Best practice would be to report the abuse, notify and warn the college community, put the professor on leave pending an investigation conducted by an independent and external investigator, and to connect the survivor with on and off campus support and resources,” Grady-Sexton said. “It is also important to remind the community of the support in place for staff, students, and alumni. Notice to the community should be as detailed as possible, within HR guidelines, with updates as things change with the status of the case.”
Our Lady Seat of Wisdom, according to Schintgen’s answers, did none of that. However, in a statement released on June 29, the college now claims, four years later, that it acted swiftly when it learned of Lieflander’s alleged abuse.
“When we learned of this case involving a former student, we acted swiftly, leading to the end of his employment with us,” the new statement reads.
In the statement, the college for the first time publicly encourages any student who may have experienced abuse perpetrated by Lieflander to come forward to the authorities.
“We have strong policies and procedures in place to handle allegations of harassment or abuse, and we communicate them clearly to all incoming members of the College community. We welcome complaints of sexual abuse and harassment, and want to promote a spirit of openness and comfort around disclosure of such incidents so that they can be dealt with in a thorough, just, and proactive manner. We also welcome scrutiny that holds us to a high standard in this regard,” the statement reads.
A former college staffer who pushed for years for the college to deal with the Lieflander accusations said the statement coming years later was “heartbreaking and scandalous.”
“When I became aware of the situation with Lieflander, I asked three different presidents at SWC to make an internal statement for the sake of providing an environment where victims could come forward. The response varied from silence, to threats and hostility,” the former staffer said.
The statement comes weeks after Schintgen became aware of our forthcoming story, and four years after the alleged abuse was first disclosed. Sam was never contacted by the school ahead of the statement’s release, which came as a shock to her.
“I am furious and appalled with their statement that lacks truth and does not reflect the reality of the situation and undermines the credibility of SWC. Their motto, which is Veritas Vos Liberabit, ‘the truth will set you free’ rings hollow and empty across from the statement they produced and without external accountability their internal credibility is corrupt,” Sam said in a statement she provided to us Wednesday night. “Even one person and their story has more value than the whole institution and they have forgotten the human value. Even one victim is too many. Shame on them.”
Women are not safe at Our Lady Seat of Wisdom, Sam said.
The college did eventually give Sam $1,000 to help pay for therapy, though Schintgen denied to confirm that, saying the matter is confidential. Sam is currently cancer-free and back studying at a different college.
“I’m just kind of worn out. Life didn’t get easier,” she said.
*
*
*
EDIT July 1, 2:40 PM: A previous version of this article erroneously labelled the featured photo as the main academic building of Our Lady Seat of Wisdom college. It is actually St. Hedwig Church. We regret the error. The photo has been removed.
*
Comments are closed for this article. Anyone wishing to contact Damien or Simcha Fisher regarding this story may use the contact form on this page.
