Bad news for Roger

THE LOS ANGELES TIMES reports ...

Los Angeles County prosecutors have reopened a child-abuse investigation into a priest who was allowed to remain in ministry after admitting to Cardinal Roger M. Mahony that he had molested children, law enforcement sources and the boys' attorney said.

The priest in question is Father Michael S. Baker who is alleged to have abused as many as 23 boys and girls from 1974 until 1999.

The new investigation involves two brothers who say they were molested more recently. The investigation had been stalled because the brothers now live in Mexico.
Last spring, however, Los Angeles prosecutors obtained U.S. visas so the brothers could be interviewed in Arizona, according to the brothers' attorney and law enforcement sources.

In 1986, Baker told Mahony that he had abused children. Rather than notify the police, the Archbishop sent the priest away for treatment and then assigned him to a series of 9 different parishes.

Mahony has expressed regret over the way he handled Baker, calling the case the one "that troubles me the most." In a May 2002 letter to priests, Mahony apologized for failing "to take firm and decisive action much earlier."

J. Michael Hennigan, church attorney, said the archdiocese isn't proud of the Baker case. "It is a case that taught us painful lessons," he said.

In the year 2000, a $1.3 million settlement was negotiated for the brothers by their civil attorney, Lynne M. Cadigan. According to the L.A. Times ...

The Archdiocese paid $325,000.
Insurers paid $400,000.

And Father Michael Baker paid $500,000.

Wow! For a guy who was supposedly away on therapy for a good part of the time and who while on the job was allegedly doing other kinds of "jobs," Baker sure knew how to rake in the bucks!