KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) – A federal judge is admonishing an advocacy group for clergy abuse victims for defying her orders to release personal information about people who accused a priest of sexual misconduct.
In a ruling Monday in St. Louis, U.S. District Judge Carol Jackson cited the “deliberate and willful refusal” by the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests to turn over the information to the Rev. Xiu Hui “Joseph” Jiang. Jiang is suing SNAP, St. Louis city, two police officers and the boy’s mother for defamation.
Jackson says she’ll direct that it has been established that SNAP plotted against Jiang.
St. Louis prosecutors accused Jiang in 2014 of sexually abusing a boy in a Catholic school bathroom but dropped the charges without explanation last year.
SNAP considers the information Jiang seeks privileged.