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SNAP - Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests
SNAPnetwork.org - David Clohessy, director 566 9790 - SNAPclohessy@aol.com

Summary
Just last month, thanks to news outlets in Washigton state, St. Louis Catholics learned that Fr. Darell Mitchell is working at a St. Louis parish with an elementary school, even though photos of nude boys had been discovered on his computer in Yakima.
On Sunday, however, we learned more, and the new revelations are even more troubling. The Yakima newspaper printed new allegations involving Mitchell’s sexual misconduct that hadn’t been made public before (http://www.yakima-herald.com/page/dis/287910043145318), including charges that Mitchell had:
- admitted that he had gone to other websites that showed naked boys, and had explained to a church employee ‘why he had downloaded the pictures’
- given beer and numerous gifts to one minor, held boys-only dinners and game nights at his home, let young men spend the night at the rectory, took a minor on a European trip, and let one minor live at the rectory with the priest for weeks one summer
- introduced the minor to others as his "godson" and himself as his "godfather,"
- urged at least two Catholics to remain quiet about the whole situation
The new allegations come from testimony given in December 2005 to a church panel by the individual who discovered the nude boy photos on Mitchell's computer in 2003.
In light of these new disclosures, we asking that, for the sake of public safety, that Archbishop Burke immediately

• suspend Mitchell from ministry and
• urge anyone who suspected suspicious behavior by Mitchell to come forward, get help, and call the police.

SNAP - Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests  (
This isn’t speculation. This is directly from the Yakima, Washington newspaper:

. . .on Dec. 21, 2006
A Catholic priest who left Yakima in 2004 while under criminal investigation for allegedly viewing child pornography has been reassigned to a church in St. Louis.
Yakima Monsignor Ron Metha, speaking for Yakima Bishop Carlos Sevilla, said that the priest "was given that assignment by Archbishop Raymond Burke, the Archbishop of St. Louis, after Bishop Sevilla disclosed to him completely all of the events that led to (his) absence from the Diocese of Yakima."
Photographs of nude boys were found on his computer.
Tony Huenneke, interim coordinator of communications for the Archdiocese of St. Louis, declined on Tuesday to talk on the record.
Huenneke would not comment on whether parishioners will be notified of the incident in Yakima.

. . . on June 11, 2005
New details have emerged in the case of a Yakima priest who was investigated by the FBI last year in connection with reports that he possessed child pornography.

But the new information about the investigation has raised questions about the Catholic Diocese of Yakima's handling of abuse reports.

Police began their investigation when a dozen or so photographs of naked boys were found downloaded on the priest's home computer in September 2003.

Since a February 2005 article in the Yakima Herald-Republic described the investigation, several people who have knowledge of a Yakima Police Department file on the case have stepped forward.

They're troubled by several aspects of the church's handling of the case:

• There was a five-day delay between when Bishop Carlos Sevilla confronted the priest about the photos and when police were notified.
• The priest may have had access to his computer after the photos were discovered but before police seized it.
• The police found no prurient files downloaded on the computer but did discover a sophisticated software program on the system that could effectively erase all prior records of visits to Web sites.
• The police didn't talk to the priest before he was sent away for treatment.

The priest was allowed to return to his home to pack before leaving the diocese to be evaluated at a Catholic mental-health facility in the Midwest.

• The priest has been placed under the tutelage of another priest in the Midwest and has returned to light clerical duties, none of which include dealings with children, according to (Yakima church official) Mazzola (SNAP note: This is NOT true. He’s at a parish with a school.)
  
• It's unlikely that the priest will ever return to work in the Yakima diocese, Mazzola believes.
  
• "The most credible position is that the priest downloaded the photos. That's the position the advisory board has taken and the bishop, too," Mazzola said.
  . . . February 10, 2005
  In September 2003, photographs of nude boys were discovered on a computer belonging to the priest.
  
• About a week after the photographs were discovered in September 2003, the priest was sent to a Catholic mental-health facility in St. Louis for an evaluation.
  
  According to a person who teaches in a Yakima diocesan school, parishioners at the church where the priest worked were told he'd had a nervous breakdown.
  
  "I'm puzzled over why the church wasn't open and honest from the very beginning," said the teacher, who asked not to be identified.

• "We were left out in the dark," said Dan Thibault, who was serving as pastoral-council chair in the Toppenish parish when rumors starting swirling about a cleric investigation.
  "I thought this whole sex-abuse scandal in the church was in the past, but then it struck us in the face that it's in the here and now."
  
  This was a priest who was reassigned to a parish with a SCHOOL," she emphasized.
  
  Her sentiment is echoed by the teacher who didn't want to be identified. "We're not saying he's a pedophile, but we are asking why the diocese wasn't more open about why they were placing him back in a ministry position."
  
  That development, however, has not quelled the parishioners' group, which believes Bishop Sevilla needs to give a full accounting of the issue.
  
• What some parishioners question is why the priest wasn't placed on administrative leave and, if returned to the diocese, placed in a position where he had little access to the public.
  
• The priest returned to the diocese last spring - before the FBI investigation had concluded - and said Mass and performed other pastoral duties.
  
• To Kaluzny, an elementary-school counselor in Yakima, it was misguided to return the priest to pastoral duties, especially at a church located next door to a school.
  
• One condition of the placement, according to (church official) Mazzola, was that the priest would have no contact with children.
  
• However, two parishioners said that on at least one occasion the priest said Mass at La Salle High School, and he was allowed to live briefly in a building close to St. Paul Cathedral School.
  
• The American Prosecutors Research Institute, which is part of the National District Attorneys Association in Alexandria, Va., argued that there's a troubling link between pornography and child abuse. Further, the attorneys said, the act of viewing pornographic pictures at the least exploits the child who was photographed.
  
• Whether the photographs were pornographic or not is beside the point, say the members of the parishioners group. "Would you want your child left with him (the priest)?" said one.
  

Other parishioners maintain that the priest was allowed to be in situations where he wasn't monitored, alleging that he went on a Catholic teen retreat in Cowiche last fall.

The same parishioners also contend that administrators at St. Paul Cathedral School weren't told about the priest's history, or the police investigation, when he was assigned to the church next door.

• Prosecutor Zirkle (said) that police investigated what was found on the computer but didn't delve into the priest's history in other parishes.

NOTE from SNAP
This is the second sexually troubled priest in the last year sent to St. Am,brose.

In the summer of 2004, Fr. Nicholas Voelker twice sexually assaulted a parishioner, Peggy Warren, of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Parish in Wichita, KS. In August 2004, to protect herself, Warren got a 'Protection From Abuse' Order against Voelker from the Sedgwick County Sheriff. After reporting Voelker’s crimes to Wichita Catholic officials, the priest was sent to St. Ambrose Catholic church in St. Louis where he worked and lived for seven months (Jan. 2005-July 2005). Voelker’s Kansas parishioners were told he was sent to St. Louis for health reasons. Voelker’s St. Louis parishioners were told he was there to go to school. But Wichita church officials allegedly sent the cleric here for "treatment" because of the sexual assaults.
In June 2005, Warren received a substantial settlement from church authorities because of the assault. She was represented by attorneys Denis Ventriglia (910-256-0040) and Mike Hepperly (316-267-5330).