“They have developed a PR spin on how they’re concerned about victims, and they want to do the right thing by victims, but at the end of the day, it’s all about the money and protecting their assets,” Zalkin said.
The lawsuit also claims that the diocese created an “Independent Compensation Fund,” in which survivors’ claims would be reviewed by an independent claim evaluator. If the claim qualified, a final settlement offer would be made.
But the lawsuit alleges that the fund “was designed to draw out individuals who would otherwise be eligible to bring a lawsuit pursuant to AB 218 and settle their claims for pennies on the dollar.”
“At the same time that the ‘Independent Compensation Fund’ was becoming operational and the Senate was passing AB 218 on to the Governor in mid-September of 2019, the Diocese was engaged in a massive effort to transfer title to hundreds of millions of dollars of real property for no consideration,” the lawsuit reads.
The lawsuit states that “this fraudulent scheme” was meant to defraud “plaintiffs and others with claims based on clergy sexual abuse.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
This article originally appeared here.