When Satan Wore a Cross

by Fred Rosen

  “I just want Father Robinson to live through all of his appeals. If the sentence were vacated, it would be as though he was never convicted. This case represents justice by proxy, or vicarious justice for the rest of us. It’s the closest thing any of us will ever have in terms of justice as our statutes have expired. It’s the closest to accountability this diocese has ever faced.”

  Robinson was taken out a side door in handcuffs. As Vercellotti began to file out with the rest of the observers, Barbara Robinson, the priest’s sister-in-law, “confronted me in open court, as her row was filing out. She stopped the entire row to say, ‘I hope you rot in hell.’ When I looked up, she added, ‘I hope you burn in hell.’”

  PART THREE

  CHAPTER 13

  Meet Jane Doe

  June 5, 2006

  It had been a long sleep. I awakened to the same gray city, only it was day, and time to meet the players in court.

  Dressing quickly, having trouble as usual knotting my tie, I went downstairs to the front desk. It was the same clerk who had checked me in. I asked him directions.

  “You want the county courthouse or the federal courthouse?”

  “The Lucas County Courthouse.”

  It was about a five-block walk, he answered, giving me convoluted directions I would never remember.

  “The priest’s trial is over, isn’t it?” the clerk asked doubtfully.

  The murder trial was over all right. Robinson was sentenced to fifteen to life and was currently serving his sentence someplace in the Ohio prison system. He was also appealing his conviction. But conviction for the murder of Margaret Ann Pahl didn’t exempt Robinson from other charges of rape and Satanism. What the clerk didn’t know was that a new accuser had come forward.

  Her name in civil court papers filed on April 20, 2005, was “Jane Doe”; her husband was identified as “John Doe.” Because criminal trumps civil, her case was put on hold until the criminal case was adjudicated. With that over, Doe’s had been free to go forward.

  In court documents, Jane Doe claimed that Robinson raped, sodomized, and did all kinds of unspeakable acts to her during a satanic ceremony for a number of years when she was a child. She had journals and drawings documenting her abuse.

  “Jane Doe had been trying to get me on the phone all weekend before she went public. My phone had been blowing up all weekend with calls from a lot the TV stations, and everyone national, and the Blade and everyone else after the indictment [of Robinson],” says Claudia Vercellotti. “When I finally got her message, I thought, If this is someone making things up…I was prepared not to be cordial at all…”

  Vercellotti got in her Toyota and drove to Jane’s house. After listening to Jane tell her story, “I didn’t think the stuff was made up,” Vercellotti says. “It was the old journals and drawings. I was sleep deprived because of the long weekend, but the drawings were old and tattered. This was something that had happened long ago that she was dealing with now.”

  Vercellotti empathized. She too had been abused by a priest. Here are Jane Doe’s specific allegations from her Complaint to the Lucas County Court of Common Pleas:

  “48. While Survivor Doe was vulnerable, and or in Father Robinson’s care…Survivor Doe was kidnapped and held either against her will or through beguilement in the basement of St. Adalbert’s.”

  Beguilement, a beautiful word to describe what in this case was an alleged act of seducing an underage child.

  “49. While held in the basement Father Robinson and other clergy colleagues including Jerry Mazuchowski and their cohorts referred to each other with the first name of a woman and then their own name. For example, Jerry Mazuchowski was named or referred to himself and by his colleague as ‘Carrie’ and ‘Carrie Jerry.’ Father Robinson was named or referred to as ‘Mary Jerry.’ Another yet unknown and unnamed John Doe defendant was referred to or called himself ‘Sue’ and Survivor Doe recalls suppressed memories of him as ‘the man named Sue.’

  “50. The clergymen, including Defendants Robinson and Mazuchowski, dressed in nun drag, circled around Plaintiff Survivor Doe while she was on a table and chanted satanical verses and ‘Son of Sam,’ and their female names. They intoned that Jesus was Satan’s SON. They cut Survivor Doe with a knife as a sacrifice to Satan and drew an upside down cross on her stomach. They forced Survivor Doe to drink blood of a sacrificed animal. At each instance, clergymen forced Survivor Doe to masturbate the clergymen in the circle. Furthermore, the clergymen would rape and or sodomize her, engage in sexual touching, demand and force her to suck their cock. She would try to escape, but they pulled her back into the circle and hit her. Afterwards, they would intimidate her, tell her she was Satan’s child, force her to clean the blood off the floor, and threaten to kill her if she told.”

  In the kind of scenario Doe is describing, the defendants are classic con men. Satanism is a simple con, someone using a belief in Satan to control someone else.

  “51. At other times, the same defendants and their cohorts would engage in the same or similar rituals and sexual abuse which escalated dramatically. In addition to the basement, she was placed on a table and tied down. They killed rabbits and made her drink the blood and then vaginally raped her with a dead snake that had its head cut off. They would also burn her feet and light matches, blow them out, and burn them into the corner of her eyes.”

  While most of Doe’s account sounded like a movie, the part about the snake is strikingly similar to Sister Marlo Damon’s statement to the Diocesan Review Board: “At age twelve in another initiation ritual, I was given to Satan. They used a snake and inserted it into my mouth, rectum and vagina to consecrate those orifices to Satan.”

  Damon’s statement was not yet public at the time Doe filed her brief. There is no apparent connection between the two women, adding to their credibility.

  “52. The rituals and abuse continued even after Survivor Doe left St. Adalbert’s because defendants Robinson and Mazuchowski had a close relationship with Survivor Doe’s mother, who also participated in the ceremonies in the woods and was becoming a high priestess.”

  The MO Doe alleges the defendants used was, again, very similar to the one Damon alleged Chet Warren used on her and her family.

  “53. During all this time, Defendants Robinson and Mazuchowski were employed by the Diocese and Oblates as priests and teacher providing religious education and counseling for Plaintiff Survivor Doe and other Roman Catholics, Defendant Diocese assigned Robinson and Mazuchowski to swerve at other parishes and/or schools under it supervision and control of, and within its geographical confines.

  “54. On information and belief, defendants Robinson and Mazuchowski abused children while serving at St. Adalbert’s and his different assignment with Defendant Diocese.

  “55. Defendants Diocese and Oblates knew or should have known of Defendants Robinson and Mazuchowski sexually abusive behavior yet continued to conceal their abuse and to move him from parish to parish and school to school.”

  The latter two paragraphs established who the alleged satanic priests worked for; time to go for the gold.

  “56. Plaintiff was raised as a devout Roman Catholic and was baptized, confirmed, regularly celebrated Mass and received the sacraments through the Roman Catholic Church. As a result, Plaintiff developed great admiration, trust, reverence, and respect for, and obedience to, the Roman Catholic Church and its priests and other agents.”

  The word “agents” made the Church sound like it had many minions at its disposal, to do its bidding. Of course, that was the way the word was intended.

  “57. Plaintiff came to know Defendant Warren as a priest and teacher; as such, Plaintiff came to admire, trust, revere and respect him as a person of great influence and persuasion as a holy man and authority figure.

  “58. Defendants Robinson and Mazuchowski used his [sic] position of authority, trust, reverence and control as a priest to enable him to engage in illegal and harmful sexual contact with Plaintiff.”


  The heart of the suit was this last paragraph. The Catholic Church has, to say the least, large coffers. If anything could open them up, it would be an accusation, proved in court, that a Catholic diocese allowed “sexually abusive behavior” by a priest and or/lay teacher under its control.

  To nail the point home, the brief added this:

  “59. Prior to Defendants Robinson and Mazuchowski’s sexual abuse of plaintiff Survivor Doe, Defendants Diocese, Oblates and St. Adalbert’s had actual knowledge of Defendant Robinson and Mazuchowski’s criminal propensities and behavior towards children, as well as a reasonable suspicion that he would repeat such criminal pedophile behavior in the future with other children. Nevertheless, Defendants Diocese, Oblates and St. Adalbert’s failed to report Defendants Robinson and Mazuchowski’s past criminal pedophile behavior and their own reasonable suspicions to Plaintiff, as required by Ohio statutory and/or common law.”

  This was the first time anyone had ever called Robinson a pedophile in a public document. If he had sexually abused Doe in the way she described, then he certainly could add pedophile to a résumé that included murder.

  “62. Further, the conduct of Defendants Diocese, Oblates and St. Adalbert’s [the guys with the money] communicated to the Plaintiff and other victim and their families that defendant Robinson’s and Defendant conduct was proper. Therefore, Defendants knew or should have known that their actions would silence plaintiff and other possible victims; prevent them from discovering their injuries; prevent them from discovering Defendants’ roles in conspiring to conceal Defendant Robinson and Mazuchowski’s criminal sexual conduct; and ultimately exacerbate the resultant emotional distress and trauma.”

  Doe was alleging a wide-ranging conspiracy between the defendants, intended not just to silence her, but to silence everyone else who had been a victim of one rogue priest and one lay teacher.

  “63. The sexual abuse of Plaintiff and the circumstances under which it occurred caused Plaintiff to develop confusion, various coping mechanisms and symptoms of psychological disorders, including great shame, guilt, self blame, depression, repression and dissociation. As a result, plaintiff was unable to immediately perceive or know that the conduct of defendants Robinson and Mazuchowski was wrongful or abusive, the existence or nature of her psychological and emotional injuries and their connection to the sexual abuse perpetrated upon her by said defendants.”

  This paragraph not only established the real damage to Doe, it reiterated her repressed memory contention to get around the statute of limitations.

  “64. Defendants Diocese, Oblates, St. Adalbert’s, Robinson and Mazuchowski not only fraudulently concealed and/or failed to report the criminal nature of the abuse of Plaintiff, despite a statutory and/or common law to do so, but also conspired to conceal said conduct.”

  Once again, the conspiracy charge surfaces, along with an added charge of fraud against the defendants.

  “65. Upon information and belief, since approximately 1950 through the present, Defendants have conspired to and have engaged in conduct including intentionally, reckless, and/or negligently concealing criminal conduct of its agents, including Defendant Warren; aiding and abetting the concealment of criminal conduct.” This included “…obstructing justice; obstructing state and/or local criminal investigation; evading civil and/or criminal prosecution and liability; perjury; destroying and/or concealing documents and records; witness intimidation; bribing and/or paying money to victims in order to keep their criminal conduct secret; violating the civil rights of children and families; engaging in mail and/ or wire fraud; and committing fraud and/or fraudulently inducement of its parishioners in furtherance of its scheme to protect predatory priests and other clergy and/or agents from criminal or civil prosecution in order to maintain or increase charitable contributions and/or to avoid public scandal in the Catholic Church.”

  Jane Doe’s attorney, Mark Davis, had thrown in everything but making the defendants responsible for John Kennedy’s assassination. It was a laundry list of charges that rose to the federal level. Mail and wire fraud and violating civil rights of children and families are all federal criminal charges. And Davis wasn’t pulling any punches, an interesting metaphor when you consider that he is a karate black belt and is probably the only attorney in Toledo who can break five blocks in a row with his hand.

  Writing that the Church has a scheme “to protect predatory priests,” furthered by “charitable contributions” was saying that the Catholic Church, specifically in Toledo, was defrauding its members by taking their contributions and using those monies to hide priests and Catholic lay teachers guilty of an extensive laundry list of local, state, and federal charges.

  “66. Plaintiff Survivor Doe only recently came to know of the ongoing conspiracy and/or conduct and Defendant Robinson’s involvement therein, through the news coverage of Father Robinson’s arrest and/or investigation as reported on April 23, 2004. Upon seeing his picture on the evening news on April 23, 2004, Plaintiff recognized and identified Robinson as one of her abusers, and further recognized him as ‘Mary-Jerry’ from the basement and the woods.

  “67. Furthermore, Plaintiff Survivor Doe only recently came to know of the ongoing conspiracy and/or conduct, and Defendant Mazuchowski’s involvement therein, through Toledo Blade’s article of February 20, 2005 whereby she recognized Mazuchowski as one of the abusers and further recognized him as ‘Carrie-Jerry’ from the basement and the woods.”

  Again, by stating the memory of her abuse was repressed, Doe hoped that that her suit would be allowed to go forward despite the fact that the statute of limitations for the crimes she describes in her statement had long run out. The charge that Robinson was also a cross-dressing priest who favored nun garb was a new one, but allegations that he worshipped Satan or raped a girl had been voiced before.

  The ritualistic behavior the prosecution alluded to during the priest’s trial, the bizarre way Sister Margaret was stabbed, seemed to indicate that Father Robinson had allied himself with the Devil, the fallen angel of God. That jibed with Jane Doe’s claims. If that could be proven in court, then Gerald Robinson would finally have been linked by direct evidence to satanic behavior.

  Plus, Doe had named as a fellow satanic conspirator Jerry Mazuchowski, the church lay teacher, who had founded the nun drag group, the Sisters of Assumed Mary. It all came down to what could be proven in court. First up would be pretrial motions in Judge Ruth Ann Franks’s wood-paneled courtroom.

  After I’d walked for about a quarter of a mile, the Lucas County Courthouse just seemed to appear, a late nineteenth-century gray, three-story Greek Revival structure in the middle of a green oasis of a park. On the National Register of Historic Places, the courthouse has beautiful stained glass windows inside depicting the various stages of justice. Too bad someone had decided to cover the original oak and mahogany interior molding with cheap, chipping white paint.

  Judge Franks’s courtroom was practically empty. In the corner of the gallery, three digital video cameras were set up on old-fashioned wooden tripods. The “shooters” were two middle-aged paunchy guys and a woman wearing Sahara shorts that exposed a huge tattoo on her massive calf. The cameras all focused in the same direction, at the door leading to the judge’s chambers.

  They paid not the slightest attention to the legless, broad-shouldered African-American transvestite wearing a nice cream-colored number and white veil. He sat alone in his wheelchair in the front row with his companion, the co-defendant, Gerard “Jerry” Mazuchowski. He looked like the “before makeover” on a reality TV show.

  Mazuchowski was about six feet, and obese, wearing long Bermuda shorts, collarless light-colored shirt upon which dangled a huge wooden cross attached to a lanyard. Mazuchowski also wore a black boot from knee to heel on his right leg and foot. He walked with a limp and leaned on a cane. Fifty-five years old, he looked like he would be lucky if he made sixty.

  Gerard “Jerry” Mazuchowski was a retired Toledo public
school teacher and lay minister of the Catholic Church. He had met Father Robinson as a student, and the two became lifelong friends. Mazuchowski was a Secular Franciscan, a member of the National Fraternity of the Secular Franciscan Order. Secular Franciscans have a unique place in Catholicism. Article One of the Secular Franciscan Order states their place eloquently:

  “The Franciscan family, as one among many spiritual families raised up by the Holy Spirit in the Church, unites all members of the people of God—laity, religious, and priests—who recognize that they are called to follow Christ in the footsteps of Saint Francis of Assisi. In various ways and forms but in life-giving union with each other, they intend to make present the charism of their common Seraphic Father in the life and mission of the Church.”

  In addition to performing at their regular jobs, many Secular Franciscans like Mazuchowski function as lay teachers within the Church. But once again, the commitment they make to the Church is much greater than a lay teacher without the Franciscan religious commitment, stated in Article VI: “They have been made living members of the Church by being buried and raised with Christ in baptism; they have been united more intimately with the Church by profession. Therefore, they should go forth as witnesses and instruments of her mission among all people, proclaiming Christ by their life and words.

  “Called like Saint Francis to rebuild the Church and inspired by his example, let them devote themselves energetically to living in full communion with the pope, bishops, and priests, fostering an open and trusting dialog of apostolic effectiveness and creativity.”

  However, no place in Article VI is it mentioned that Secular Franciscans are supposed to dress up in nun drag and cavort through the basements of St. Adalbert’s and other Toledo churches. But that’s what happened when Jerry Mazuchowski organized a loosely knit group of church insiders who did exactly that in the 1970s. As the founder, Mazuchowski got the honor of naming them—the Sisters of Assumed Mary (SAM). This was prior to the Son of Sam serial killer case in New York City.