If you thought Rudy Giuliani's devotion to mobbed-up Bernie Kerik showed appalling judgment, wait until you learn about Monsignor Alan Placa - an accused teen molester who has Giuliani's total support.
That's Placa on the right with Rudy and Judy during a trip they took to Rome together in January.
Brian Ross of ABC News is on the story - the same Brian Ross who exposed Mark Foley's abuse of Congressional Pages.
Giuliani Defends, Employs Priest Accused of Molesting Teens
Presidential candidate Rudolph Giuliani hired a Catholic priest to work in his consulting firm months after the priest was accused of sexually molesting two former students and an altar boy and told by the church to stop performing his priestly duties.
The priest, Monsignor Alan Placa, a longtime friend of Giuliani and the priest who officiated at his second wedding to Donna Hanover, continues to work at Giuliani Partners in New York, to the outrage of some of his accusers and victims' groups, which have begun to protest at Giuliani campaign events.
"This man did unjust things, and he's being protected and employed and taken care of. It's not a good thing," said one of the accusers, Richard Tollner, who says Placa molested him repeatedly when he was a student at a Long Island, N.Y. Catholic boys high school in 1975.
At a campaign appearance in Milwaukee last week, Giuliani continued to defend Placa, who he described to reporters as a close friend for 39 years.
"I know the man; I know who he is, so I support him," Giuliani said. "We give some of the worst people in our society the presumption of innocence and benefit of the doubt," he said. "And, of course, I'm going to give that to one of my closest friends."
Close indeed. According to Wikipedia,
Placa was best man at Giuliani's wedding to second-cousin Regina Peruggi and then assisted Giuliani get that marriage annulled over the objections of his wife so that he could marry girlfriend Donna Hannover.
Here's what Brian Ross discovered about Placa:
The accusations against Placa were made in testimony before a Suffolk County grand jury in 2002.
Tollner, now a mortgage broker in Albany, N.Y., says he was one of three people to testify about Placa.
"This man harmed children. He still could do it. He deserves to be shown for what he was, or is," says Tollner.
Appearing publicly for the first time today on ABC News' "Good Morning America," Tollner says the abuse started when he and Placa were in the high school making posters for a Right to Life march.
"As he started to explain how these posters should be done, I realized that something was rubbing my body," Tollner said. "After a minute or two, I realized that he's feeling me, feeling me in my genital area."
The grand jury report concluded that a Priest F, who Tollner says is Placa, abused the boys sexually "again and again and again."
"Priest F was cautious, but relentless in his pursuit of victims. He fondled boys over their clothes, usually in his office," the report said.
The report concluded that Priest F, and several other priests under investigation from the same Long Island, N.Y. diocese, could not be prosecuted because the statute of limitations had expired...
In addition to the allegations that Priest F was personally involved in the sexual abuse, the grand jury also said that Priest F became instrumental in a church policy that used "deception and intimidation" to keep the church scandal quiet.
Placa served as a lawyer for the diocese in dealing with allegations of abuse against other priests and, according to the grand jury report, claimed he had saved the church hundreds of thousands of dollars in his handling of possible litigation.
Lawyers for alleged victims say Placa would often conduct interviews, in his priest garb, without making it clear he was the church lawyer.
"He was a wolf in sheep's clothing," said Melanie Little, a lawyer for several alleged victims of sexual abuse by other priests in the diocese.
"He was more concerned with protecting the priests, protecting the reputation of the diocese and protecting the church coffers than he was protecting the children," said Little.
Since going to work for Giuliani Partners, the former mayor and the priest have continued to be close.
So why has this story received virtually no coverage beyond ABC? Why aren't FOX's morality gestapo - Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity - all over this scandal?
Can you imagine if this was a Democrat???
Of course the question answers itself. If Americans learned about Giuliani's defense of Placa, no one in America would vote for Giuliani. So this information will not get out because Giuliani is the annointed candidate of the Corporate Media.
