Court deals blow to Seton Hall sex abuse survivors, keeps bombshell report secret

A court has blocked the public release of a Seton Hall University report detailing former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick’s sexual misconduct allegations, overturning a lower court’s order to reveal the findings, which Seton Hall has tried to hide for years.The factual findings of a massive 20,000-page internal probe Seton Hall commissioned on clergy sex abuse at the Catholic school — including who knew what and how the school responded — are protected by attorney client privilege, the New Jersey appellate court said this week.That flips a prior decision in November by a trial judge who ruled that since the school didn’t directly hire the law firm who conducted the probe — Latham & Watkins — no privilege existed and the docs were fair game.“We are persuaded by [Seton Hall University]’s contention that the court erred when it found that no attorney-client relationship existed,” the court ruled.While those two sections on the evidence of McCarrick’s misconduct and how the school responded, the court ruled that a third section regarding the school’s Title IX policies and protocols can be made public.“The public interests, namely eradicating sexual harassment and abuse as well as increasing transparency at SHU and in the Church, weigh strongly in favor of disclosure of this part,” the ruling states. “While we are pleased that the Appellate Division compelled the production of some parts of the Latham Report, we are still digesting the opinion and considering our appeal options with respect to the rest of the decision,” said attorney Gabriel C.Magee, who represented the survivors in the appeal case.Existence of the Latham Report was first exposed in a 2024 Politico report which revealed that the current Seton Hall president, Monsignor Joesph Reilly, failed to report sexual abuse allegations — a violation of federal Title IX funding law.It’s unclear if more details regarding Reilly will be contained in the green-lit Title IX section o...