ARTICLES

"To Do Nothing Is Not a Solution"

CHRONOLOGY OF RUDY KOS COURT CASE

What is known is that after Father Rudy Kos's priestly faculties were removed following accusations of homosexual pedophilia, he left his diocese of Dallas, Texas and moved to San Diego. Here he lived and worked for the next four years. After two articles in the San Diego Reader revealed his whereabouts, Kos moved out of his apartment across from Our Lady of the Rosary church in Little Italy.

While it is unclear why he came to San Diego, Kos is due back in Dallas for a September 15 hearing on further criminal charges. The following is a chronology of courtroom proceedings in the Kos trial.

May 23, 1993 -- First lawsuit against the Dallas Catholic Diocese is filed.

May 2, 1997 -- Jury selection begins from a pool of more than 800 candidates.

May 15, 1997 -- Trial begins before State Court Judge Anne Ashby in Dallas. "The evidence will show the diocese followed a don't-ask-and-don't-tell policy," said plaintiff's attorney Windle Turley. "(They said) We don't want to know because to know will bring scandal on the church. The church hate scandal worse than anything. We will do anything to avoid scandal."

An attorney for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Dallas countered that officials suspended Fr. Kos in 1992 as soon as they heard the allegations of sexual abuse. They argued the diocese should not be liable for his conduct.

"This was tricky manipulation by a smart sociopath," Randal Mathis said in his opening statement as Bishop Charles Grahmann and Monsignor Duffy Gardner sat next to him. "The whole concept of child sexual abuse flies in the face of everything this diocese stands for."

May 16, 1997 -- Testimony in the case begins with Kos' two younger brothers who said he repeatedly abused them. Appearing by videotape, the brothers said they would have told church officials that Kos was unfit to be a priest if they had been asked. They said he repeatedly abused them sexually when he was a teenager and spent a year in a juvenile detention facility for abusing a neighbor.

Testimony of Kathleene Hetzel Winkler, Kos' ex-wife, was read to the jury. In it, she said she met Kos in the fifth grade and lived with him only about six months after their marriage in 1966. She said they never consummated the marriage.

Ms. Winkler also testified she told church officials Kos was gay and had a problem with boys during an interview needed to annul the marriage.

May 20, 1997 -- The first of 10 plaintiffs testified he as abused as many as 500 times by Father Kos. "He raped me spiritually and murdered my soul," the 28-year-old computer programmer testified. "I seem to be reliving this in more and more detail every day and it is difficult."

May 21, 1997 -- A psychiatrist that examined Father Kos testified that he was a sexual opportunist who should have been kept away from children.

Dr. Jay Feierman worked at the New Mexico treatment center where Kos was sent for 14 months starting in 1992. "People like that should no longer have access to children -- period," Dr. Feierman said. "If they had confirmed observations that this person is a pied piper with kids following him around that in itself is a reason for concern."

The 2000-year-old rule of the church is don't ask, don't tell."

May 22, 1997 -- A second plaintiff testified he was abused by Father Kos in the rectory of
the All Saints Catholic Church in North Dallas. The man's mother said she blamed herself for the abuse. She testified that she was a devout Catholic with priests in her own family and that she never imagined what was happening. "It was a den of iniquity, an evil place. I was taken advantage of by a priest, a man of God that I had grown up to believe was better than the average person."

May 23, 1997 -- Father Kos's superior at St. Luke's Catholic Church in Irving testified that he kept a detailed log of the comings and goings of young boys at Kos's room in the rectory. Father Daniel Clayton told the jury he sent the log to Monsignor Robert Rehkemper, who was then the No. 2 official in the diocese. Also, a psychiatrist that examined one of the young men testified he will need more than a decade of intensive therapy to prevent him from committing suicide for problems related to the abuse.

May 27, 1997 -- A 1986 letter from Father Clayton showed he warned church officials that Kos was spending too much time with young boys. The letter, sent to Bishop Thomas Tschoepe six years before Kos was suspended, warned that something should be done. "I will not play psychologist, but I feel anxious about the situation," Clayton wrote. "My instincts tell me to do nothing is not a solution."

May 28, 1997 -- A young man abused by Father Kos testified that the suspended priest called him several times from a New Mexico pedophile treatment facility. The man said Kos told him the diocese had sent him there for stress treatment. Also, Father Robert Williams, the associate pastor at St. John's, testified that he was alarmed from the first day Kos arrived at the church about the amount of time he spent with boys. He also testified he saw Kos in his rectory bed with a boy in his room.

May 29, 1997 -- A Catholic committee on sexual abuse decided not to tell parishioners that Father Kos had been sent to a New Mexico pedophile treatment facility. Instead, church officials read parishioners a letter that said Kos had voluntarily resigned to seek treatment for stress.

Father Robert Williams, an assistant at St. John's who read a letter prepared by the diocese about Kos to parishioners, testified he was angry that he and parishioners were not told the truth about why Kos left.

"The diocese asked you to read the parish a lie?" Windle Turley asked Father Williams."Yes," he replied.

May 30, 1997 -- Judge Anne Ashby threatened to hold Monsignor Robert Rehkemper in contempt of court for refusing to directly answer questions about his supervision of Father Kos. Rehkemper, the No. 2 official in the Diocese, was warned by the judge about being "defiant" and was instructed to speak with his attorney outside of the court about the ramifications of failing to answer questions. Rehkemper later testified he had first met with a priest concerned about Kos' behavior with boys in 1986, seven years before the first youth complained. Rehkemper testified the diocese took no actions against Kos because there was no proof that abuse had actually occurred.

July 21, 1997 -- Closing arguments in the case are given. The jury begins deliberations.

July 24, 1997 -- Jury returns verdict and finds that the diocese is liable for gross neglect. It awards damages of more than a million dollars for each plaintiff.