November 27, 2023

The Father James Torquato Retaliations

--- Written by an individual who trusted Wuerl enough to see to it that James
     Torquato would be reported to Wuerl, done solely out of a sense of con-
     science, followed by retaliation.

     This is a continuation of:

      http://www.donaldwuerl.com/2013/08/wuerl-ratified-retaliations.html

      http://www.donaldwuerl.com/2014/01/the-apartment-bldg-intrusion.html

  Preliminary note:  An American canon lawyer and convert to Catholicism
  who is well known in the canon law world said that bishops such as Donald
  Wuerl cause people to leave the church.  The following is a case in point:

Whatever you let happen to one person,
you are willing to let happen to all oth-
ers in the same social strata.  That which
Wuerl let happen to me and two other in-
dividuals (after I assisted a young adult 
male in reporting an abusive priest) is
that which he will let happen to you, if
you are a part of the common citizenry.

This included the harassment, the econom-
ic terrorism and ensuing economic loss, as.
well as the telephoned threat, the physical
pursuit, and diversionary press release tac-
tics, along with the failed attempt of the
accused priest to frame his accuser for a
theft never occurred in the first place.
This equally included the setting of the stage for an awkward nighttime encounter
which almost turned into a full scale neighborhood brawl.  Do not be deceived in-
to thinking that tiny Donald Wuerl would ever let you or anyone else be spared of
that which we were not, unless he can use you for advancement or financial gain.

For the Record, it was an Act of Conscience

The reporting of the homosexual priest was an act of conscience, being that
there is such a thing as a sin of negligence by which you will eventually be
held accountability by God and or any irate parent who might one day ask
you why you kept silent about a priest of whom you knew to be a predator.
In light of this, know that the efforts I made for the sake of the young adult
male who was approached by a unconscionable priest are the same efforts
that I would have made for your sake.  Actually, those efforts were made
for your sake.  However, the effort was to no avail.

The Local Media Contributed to the Deception

The other reason why I assisted in having the offending priest reported was
because of the press releases which assured the public that Wuerl could be
trusted.  I learned through personal experience and the information conveyed
to me from others that Donald Wuerl can't be trusted in any capacity.  Even
Donald Wuerl's choice of seminarian to ordain can't be trusted.  So too is this
the case of Wuerl's choice of personal secretary.

When the Priest First Approached the Young
Adult Male, He Was Approaching a Teenager
who Was Minding His Own Business

Wuerl's former personal secretary, James Torquato, approached the young
man who would come to be torquato's accuser, while the young man was
still a teenager.  The guise under which Torquato approached the young
male was that of a vague type of sociology researcher.  Torquato claimed
that he was seeking to learn what draws the youth to church ... according
to his accuser.

The young man was sitting on the steps of a church, watching people come 
out of Mass when the priest first approached him. The priest then invited
him to brunch. Without getting into details, the priest eventually said that
there was "a lot of work to be done" for the young gentleman's spiritual
well being.

The Retaliation Against a Third Party Whom I
Didn't Even Know Existed at the Start of This

We didn't tell any member of the young man's family about the abusive
priest, and we certainly didn't tell any family member that we reported
the priest to Wuerl.  Someone else brought the young gentleman's family
into this matter, and it was a violation of privacy to have done so.  After
all, the young man was the age of majority and no one was his legal guar-
dian.

None the less, the invasion of privacy would result surrogate harassment
within a short period of time. Someone in the diocese decided to become
a puppeteer.

You see, an uncle of the young man had business accounts with Wuerl's dio-
cese, and according to a legally intercepted communication, the income that
the uncle received from those accounts was significant enough to cause a
brutal impact if they were to be suddenly terminated.  Now, Wuerl's form-
er secretary never mentioned to his prey that he gave business to one of the
young man's uncles.   None the less, the business accounts would soon be
used as a vehicle for retaliation.  Those accounts would be terminated by
an accused priest shortly after the accusations were sent to Wuerl's office.

Time line

The complaint against Wuerl's former personal secretary was mailed in ear-
ly January of 1998. Then, a piece of mail, dated January 29, was sent to the
victim. It was forwarded to the address that he was using during a sabbati-
cal.  That piece of mail was simply a card.  There was neither a signature
on the card and no a return address on the envelope.  The card merely stat-
ed, "{name of Torquato's accuser}, call xxx-xxx-xxxx. Urgent."  The note
stated nothing else.  Torquato was abusing his power at the outset.

An Invasion of Privacy

The invasive feature of that card consisted in the fact that, in his initial cor-
respondence to Wuerl, the accuser of Wuerl's former secretary asked not to
be contacted until the end of February.   He was on an eight week sabbatical
at the time, and he had already experienced viciousness from the Diocese of
Pittsburgh regarding another matter.  So, he wanted to be spared of any furth-
er distress while on his sabbatical.

The young man eventually telephoned the number that appeared on the Jan-
uary 29 card, and it turned out to be his uncle.  It's pertinent to note that the
accuser only spoke with his uncle during Holiday get-togethers.  That is to
say, the young man's uncle was not in the young man's daily life.  His uncle,
therefore, was not the young man's confidant.  Yet, the young man's uncle
would be brought into a very personal matter.  Concerning the phone call,
the uncle was vague and evasive.

When mid-February came, an investigating priest sent the young man a let-
ter, acknowledging the receipt of his complaint.   Then, on March 3, 1998,
the primary diocesan investigator sent a letter to , asking him to schedule an
appointment, so that they could "discuss the matter further."  Ever so coinci-
dentally, the young man never got the letter.  So, a follow-up letter was sent
to him, certified.

No Acknowledgment of a Demand Letter's Sending.
A Harassment Instead.

During that same week, a notarized demand letter from the young man was
mailed to Donald Wuerl. In it, the aggrieved accuser asserted his right to
financial reparation for sexual harassment, fraudulent misrepresentation,
and breach of a spiritual director's fiduciary duties. However, Wuerl made
no acknowledgment of the demand letter's arrival.

It's assumed that the demand letter arrived within 48 hours of its sending.
Well, within sixty hours of its sending the accuser's uncle physically ap-
peared on the scene.  By the time the evening came, the uncle insisted on
seeing the young man in person, immediately.  So, the two of them met at
a family restaurant.

While at the restaurant, the uncle mentioned the name of the abusive priest;
Father James Torquato, and he revealed that he had business accounts with
the diocese.  He also said, "Right now, you are in a huge spotlight."

No Written Acknowledgment of its
Second Delivery. A Retaliation, Instead.

Being that no one responded to the original demand letter, it was copied and
hand delivered to the diocesan building on March 18.   This was its second
sending, and it was accompanied by a package of photocopied evidence.  In
fact, the accompanying letter literally read, "Test it for cracks."

The Result of the Second Delivery

Concerning the demand letter and the accompanying evidence, one of the
three following things happened the same day when it was hand delivered
to the diocesan building:

[1] Either the predatory priest immediately
terminated the uncle's business accounts,

[2] or another member of the diocese terminated them,

[3] or the uncle was given an ultimatum by which he was
to get his nephew to fade away, under penalty of loos-
ing his business accounts in the very near future.

Tape Recorded Evidence

That night, an additional piece of evidence came into existence.  It was the
tape recording of a harassment made upon the young man.  In it is mention
of the business accounts that the uncle had with the diocese, along with the
economic pertinence of them.  The tape recording ends with the sound of
things crashing to the floor and a screen door latch breaking, as the young
man literally had to take flight on foot.  There was the attempt to take the
young man's tape recording away from him.

That night, the young man called me from a pay phone, asking me to make
the 12 mile trip to pick him up. When I arrived, the first thing that I noticed
was that his jeans were wet up to the knees.  He had taken flight through the
woods at night.  As a result, I gave him shelter at my apartment, and it be-
came the next destination in the pursuit of him.

Incidentally, according to U.S. federal law, it is legal to record your own
conversation, even if no other party to the conversation knows that you are
recording it. 18 USC, Chapter 119, Section 2511(2)(d).

The Pursuit

Shortly after that incident, unfriendly forces made their ways into the apart-
ment building where I had been living for years. It was the kind of building
where you needed either a key to get into it or a person to open the door for
you.  The only other option was that of breaking into the building.

An eyewitness account stated that two men were banging on my apartment
door with a wooden object, while chanting "Pat is going to Hell."  Then
came silence.  So, a female neighbor went out into the hallway, assuming
that the men had exited the building.  She was then grabbed at the arm, and
asked where priest's accuser was.  He was pleading in a tone of despera-
tion, in fear that Wuerl would let the family be the object of further retali-
ation ... for doing what was 100% correct to have done.

You see, there were people who were afraid that Wuerl's diocese would
inflict more retaliation on the accuser's family members than it had thus far
done.  During that time we were elsewhere, keeping one step ahead of the
pursuit, unaware of what was happening at the apartment building.  During
this time, the original tape recording and the postmarked mail of months and
years prior went with me.  Copies were kept elsewhere.

Prior to That

There were previous phone calls made to my living quarters from a few
dozen miles away.  The prevailing theme of those phone calls was: "Back
off."  Those calls were eventually followed by a midnight phone call from
a complete stranger, traced to a very nearby phone, via * 69.  This call was
not for me, however.  Yet, the caller didn't dial the wrong number. 

This was when, in the middle of the night, I took Torquato's accuser to a pre-
arranged place, along with the original tape recording and original pieces of
hard copy evidence.  At present, those original pieces of evidence are in the
hands of a certain publisher.  Jpegs of the copies of the visual part of the evi-
dence are already online, at:

Wuerl Could Have Stopped it with One Phone Call

Wuerl could have stopped the pursuit by means of one phone call, in assuring
the pursuers that no retaliation would be imposed upon any member of the ac-
cuser's family.  Wuerl did not pick up the phone and make the needed call.

In not returning the uncle's business accounts to him, and in not picking up the
phone, in order to stop the pursuit, Wuerl made a de facto ratification of his
diocese's conduct.  In not paying restitution for the economic loss that result-
ed from the retaliation, Wuerl also ratified diocesan conduct.

One of the Pursuers Later Admitted to me that . . .

When the pursuit phase was nearing its end, one of the pursuers confided to
me, via telephone, the following: "I would have gone through you to get to
{accuser's name}."  Understand this to mean "physically through," and keep
in mind that this was stated to an asthmatic who no longer had the health to
play Charles Bronson styled games.

The Second Wave of Retaliatory Conduct

During the summer of 1999, James Torquato's accuser had hair down to his
shoulders, and his job required him to work Saturdays, in security clearance
work which required detailed accounting of his daily work activites.  Dur-
ing that same summer, Torquato was stationed in a part of Pittsburgh differ-
ent than the one where he had been stationed from 1996 to 1998.

During the summer of 1999, the young man and I went to a magistrate's of-
fice, in order to see if some type of criminal or civil complaint could be
filed against Wuerl and Torquato.  However, within a few days, a rental
shop operator, located in a State park, called the police and accused the
accuser of Torquato of theft, despite the fact that the youth was on record
as having not been anywhere near the State park.

The shop keeper stated that Torquato's accuser stole rental shop property on
a Saturday ... namley, a bike.  The young man was at work at the time he was
supposed to have taken the property and never returned it.  Most importantly,
the rental shop operator claimed that Torquato's accuser had short hair, only
slightly longer than a crew cut.  Well, at the time, Torquato's accuser had hair
the length of his shoulders.

Despite the fact that the rental shop operator was obviously lying, he was
never arrested for lying to the police.  This makes the police accomplices
to the harassment of Torquato's accuser.   At this point, keep in mind that
Nuremberg and Knapp Commission type trials always emerge throughout
history, in order to punish those who abuse power.

This blatantly false accusation would have been just an annoying vexation,
except for the fact that the police contacted the young man's mother, instead
of the young man himself.   Getting the young man's family involved made the
telephone call much more than an annoyance.  His family was again brought
into a matter that should have been directed to the young man who lived 15
miles away from his mom.

James Torquato's accuser was never told the price of the bicycle that he was
accused of having stolen.  Therefore, he did not know if the accusation con-
stituted a felony, a misdemeanor, a summary offense, or a tort offense.  None
the less, there are road bikes and mountain bikes that are expensive.  Even at
that, Torquato's accuser already owned a bike, and was known to use it, time
after time after time.  He had no need to rent any bike/

The Shop was Ever so Coincidentally Located near
the Recent Home of the Homosexual Predator Priest

The rental shop was ever so coincidentally located near the diocesan high
school where Torquato was stationed between 1996 and 1998.  The State
park where within sat the rental shop was a park reputed as a meeting place
for homosexuals.  In addition, the shop keeper who called the police had a
flaming homosexual voice.   Needless to say, this caused us to reasonably
suspect that the rental shop operator had a personal connection with the
homosexual element of the Diocese of Pittsburgh.

The timing of the theft accusation was far too coincidental for us to suspect
anything other than it was an orchestrated diocesan ploy, done in retaliation
for the young man's visit to a magistrate's office, days prior.  The retaliation
served the function of diversionnary tactic, thereby robbing the young man of
time that could have been spent in preparing evidence against Wuerl and his
former personal secretary, and then presenting it to law enforcement authori-
ties.  Thisis why Nuremberg type trials emerge throughout history ... to hold
accountable the abusers of power.

A Photo License First Discovered Missing Shortly after
the Priest Made a Visit to the Young Man's Apartment

The rental shop operator and the police claimed that the evidence proving
the commission of the alleged theft was the accuser's photo license.  It was
allegedly left by the young man at the rental shop on the Saturday when he
was documented as having been at work. At one time, the accuser did have
a driver's license with a photo of him in a crew cut, but he discovered it
missing shortly after Wuerl's former secretary visited him, at the apartment
where he once lived.

The rental shop operator did say that the accuser's hair was slightly longer
than the hair of his crew cut photo, even though the young man had hair down
to his shoulders at the time.  After the victim's "crew cut photo license" was
discovered missing, he obtained a replacement, never suspecting that James
Torquatothe might have possibly stolen his previous one.  Yet, there was a
point during the priest's visit when he had ready access to the wallet that con-
tained the photo license that would soon thereafter be discovered missing.

They Refused to Produce the Alleged
Evidence and then Dropped the Case

When we demanded to see the driver's license that the rental shop operator
claimed to have been given, the police refused to show it to us.  In fact, we
didn't know if the police had a photo license to show us.  We were dealing
with the McCandless Township police department.  It was alleged to have
been part of another alleged sex abuse case, closing it down by undue influ-
ence upon the accuser of a Catholic school teacher.  The police were ex-
tremely uncooperative with us, concerning the rental shop operator.  Some-
one should remind such police of 1} the Knapp Commission and 2} the rage
of the participants during the worldwide Occupy Wall Street Movement.

After our appearance at the police station, and after our demand to see the
alleged evidence, nobody bothered us about the accusation again.  Now, I
did call the rental shop owner, but he screamed at me in his flaming homo-
sexual voice and then hung up on me.  To this day, I don't know if the rental
shop operator lied about having the victim's photo license or if he did have
the one that was discovered missing after the predatory priest's visit to his
future accuser's home.

In addition, if there were a rental agreement shown to the police, what did
the signature on it look like? Did it look like a clever forgery of the young
man's handwriting, or was it blatantly forged?  No one showed us a rental
agreement.

The Predator/Harasser/Intruder was
Rewarded with a Free Trip to Rome

As was previously mentioned, we eventually filed a federal lawsuit against
the Diocese of Pittsburgh. While the court case was on a district court's doc-
ket, Wuerl's former secretary was ever so coincidentally sent outside of Unit-
ed States jurisdiction, to Rome, in order to "work on his doctorate."

A Note about Canon Law

Canon Law mandates that, whenever a cleric abuses his position of power,
he is to be "punished doubly." Was there a punishment imposed upon any
abusive cleric in this matter?  If so, then where is the restitution that they
owe to the three of us?

The Priest had His Victim's Family Fooled

Throughout the predatory years, Wuerl's former secretary would even call
the young man's home.  Whenever the young man's mother would answer, she
would get him to the phone pronto, simply because it was a priest who was
calling.  In fact, Torquato was called "a fine young man" by the young man's
own grandmother, causing even greater confusion in the young man's mind. 

The high school where the priest was stationed was located near the young
man's grandparents.  When he was president of the high school, he was co-
incidentally residing at the parish to which the young man's grandparents be-
longed.  Did he request to be assigned there?

The Priest Hid the Fact that He Knew the Young Man
(the young man's family members being the exception)


Wuerl's former secretary and his future accuser unexpectedly ended up at the
same social function, once. Throughout that entire night, the predatory priest
declined to acknowledge the young man's existence.  That is to say, the priest
acted as if he never met the gentleman. Yet, they were both seated at the same
dinner table.

In addition, when the young man came to Wuerl's own residence, the former
secretary who invited him there kept insisting that the young man park his car
in a place thatever so coincidentally hid the car from plain sight.

A lady friend of Torquato's accuser once approached Torquato, introducing
herself as the young man's friend.  Torquato was unresponsive.  He repeated-
ly elected to not advertise that fact that he knew the young man.  That is what
makes the numerous pieces of mail sent by the priest to the young man invalu-
able pieces of evidence.

After the Priest Returned from Rome, . . .

After Torquato returned from Rome, he was eventually assigned to the co-
director post of religious education for one of the diocese's deaneries.  In
due time, Wuerl would appoint him pastor of a Pittsburgh diocesan parish,
in Carrick, Pennsylvania.