Civil suit alleges Mahony covered up sexual abuse

The federal court lawsuit by an unidentified 25-year-old Mexican was filed under the Alien Tort Claims Act of 1789, which the LAT says allows foreign victims of human rights abuses to bring their perpetrators to justice in U.S. courts. The suit says that Cardinal Roger Mahony and Cardinal Norberto Rivera Carrera of Mexico City covered up allegations against Father Nicolas Aguilar Rivera, here and in Mexico, exposing more victims to a known pedophile. The plaintiff says he was abused by Aguilar as a 12-year-old altar boy. From the Times story:

[In 1986] Rivera wrote to Mahony to offer Aguilar for placement in a Los Angeles ministry, with a coded reference to the priest being problematic, the lawsuit alleges.

Mahony appointed Aguilar associate pastor at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church in Los Angeles in March 1987, and two months later, transferred him to St. Agatha Catholic Church, according to the suit. Within nine months of Aguilar's arrival, Los Angeles police had amassed 26 reports of sexual abuse of minors by the priest, who fled to Mexico the night Mahony was informed of the abuse allegations, according to the suit filed by attorney Jeffery R. Anderson.

The suit alleges that a top church official in Los Angeles knew that Aguilar planned to flee the country and did not notify police "in direct violation of California law."

Los Angeles archdiocese spokesman Tod M. Tamberg called the lawyer's claims "preposterous and without foundation."