SEATTLE, Wash. – Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson (D) alleging that they potentially used charitable funds to hide child sex abuse. A Seattle Superior Court judge denied a subpoena petition filed by Ferguson’s office on Friday.
The legal issue at hand was whether religious organizations are exempt from the Charitable Trust Act, which requires public transparency for charitable trusts over $250,000.
The Archdiocese of Seattle argued that it had a legal right not to share whether it used charity money to hide sex abuse because the Catholic Church is a religious organization registered with the Internal Revenue Service, putting it out of reach of Washington’s trust regulations.
“The religious organizations exemption that the Legislature chose to include in the Charitable Trust Act precludes the AGO’s investigative subpoena here,” the archdiocese’s legal team said in a court filing ahead of Friday’s hearing.
Judge Michael Ramsey Scott sided with the Catholic diocese on Friday, turning down the state’s investigative subpoena petition.
The attorney general’s office argued that sexual abuse cover-ups are not exempt from the Charitable Trust Act after the hearing and promised to appeal the decision.
“We plan to immediately appeal this decision because Washingtonians deserve a full public accounting of the Church’s involvement in and responsibility for the child sexual abuse crisis. As a Catholic, I believe in justice for survivors and I am disappointed by the Church’s lack of transparency,” Ferguson said.
Several survivors of clergy sex abuse associated with the Catholic Accountability Project were at the courthouse as the judge’s denial of the petition was read out.
