To clear his name, Father Eduard Perrone is treading on sacred ground in the Catholic church: he’s suing a fellow priest.
Perrone maintains he has no choice.
The 72-year-old priest says he lost his job temporarily over false molestation claims. And the man behind it all, he alleges, is Monsignor G. Michael Bugarin, the latest target in Perrone’s 14-month-old legal battle to get his job back at Detroit’s Assumption Grotto, where he was removed from last year over allegations he molested an altar boy 40 years ago.
In what is believed to be a first for the Archdiocese of Detroit, Perrone is suing Bugarin for defamation, alleging his “removal and public humiliation were orchestrated” by Bugarin, who, he claims, fabricated a rape claim against him in 2019 that led to his temporary ouster.
“He was very reluctant to do that. It was very hard. In many ways, this is a band of brothers that are expected to stand through trials and tribulations together in the world,” said Christopher Kolomjec, one of Perrone’s lawyers in the case. “For one priest to sue a monsignor, who is supposed to be a higher level priest, is unprecedented.”
“But there is something worse than suing a brother priest,” Kolomjec added, “and that’s framing a brother priest for a sex crime.”
Bugarin, also pastor at St. Joan of Arc in St. Clair Shores, is the person in charge of overseeing clergy abuse complaints for the Detroit archdiocese. Perrone’s lawsuit against him comes two weeks after Perrone settled another defamation lawsuit against a Macomb County detective who investigated him in the abuse case — a lawsuit that ended last month with a $125,000 cash settlement for Perrone.
The Detroit archdiocese has said very little about the case, beyond stressing that it has a duty to investigate all claims of clergy sex abuse, and that Perrone is presumed innocent pending final word from the Vatican.
As for the lawsuit against Bugarin, it would only say:
"I don’t ever remember a lawsuit like this during my three decades at the Detroit archdiocese," said AOD spokesman Ned McGrath, who declined to comment on the lawsuit's allegations. "The AOD is aware of the lawsuit and, as is its policy in all matters under litigation, will offer its comments or reactions in court, not elsewhere."
When asked if there's any chance Perrone could be returned to ministry, McGrath would only say: "Until the canonical proceeding is fully resolved, Fr. Perrone is presumed innocent while restricted from all public ministry."
While the sodomy claim has been removed from Perrone’s file, Perrone remains under investigation on allegations he fondled a teen boy during swim parties at his parents’ lake house four decades ago. Church officials are also trying to determine if Perrone crossed boundary lines when he took two teen boys on a camping trip in the 1970s and slept in a small tent between the two high school juniors, with no one else there.
Perrone maintains he is innocent, that he has never harmed any child and that nothing improper occurred on that camping trip.
His flock is also behind him. In February, 20 Assumption Grotto parishioners filed a novel $20 million lawsuit against the Detroit archdiocese, alleging they suffered emotional distress over the removal of their priest, and that church officials are trying to get rid of Perrone because they don't like his conservative and traditional ways.
Controversial photographs
In his 41 years as a priest, Perrone has been accused of sexual misconduct by two accusers. One came forward in 2018 after his wife called an archdiocese hotline and reported that her husband had been molested as a child by a priest; the other surfaced after Perrone was removed from ministry.
Both men suffer from mental health issues and have declined to speak to the Free Press about their allegations, fearing repercussions.
Perrone says he doesn’t know his second accuser, who claimed Perrone fondled him in a car once when he was a teenager. But he remembers the first accuser well: a former altar boy at St. Peter Catholic Church in Mount Clemens who wanted to become a priest, had a difficult home life and forged a relationship with the family priest who looked after him, even after he left for college.
The now grown man told investigators that he believes Perrone started grooming him when he was 13, though he has changed his story multiple times with police, at times saying Perrone groped him under the water, but then later saying he felt it was unintentional. A sodomy claim also was made, but for reasons unknown, the accuser recanted and said that he was never sodomized.
In the end, it may be two controversial photographs coupled with the accuser’s claims that end Perrone’s career. The photos were taken during the camping trip that is now being scrutinized by church officials to determine if Perrone committed any boundary violations in his early years as a priest.
One of the photos shows Perrone, then 29, posing in the lake sideways with his body propped up on an elbow, wearing only what a detective described as “tighty-whiteys” and posing in a “peculiar” and “concerning” manner.
“It’s not child pornography … Erotica maybe,” Macomb County detective Nancy LePage said of Perrone’s lake pose during a deposition with Perrone’s lawyers. “Based on his pose and where he’s at and the circumstances surrounding the picture … it’s suggestive in nature certainly.”
Perrone’s lawyers asked the detective if she’d been on a camping trip before where she went swimming.
“Yes, but I don’t recall posing in the water like that,” LePage responded.
The second photo shows Perrone standing and wearing only a towel, with his clothes hanging on a pole or hook.
For LePage, the photo was “potentially sexually suggestive.” And it warranted scrutiny as one of the boys on that trip would years later allege that Perrone had sexually abused him on a camping trip, according to police records.
But Perrone’s lawyers are crying foul, arguing the photos prove nothing, but rather bolster their claims that church officials are doing whatever they can to harm his reputation.
“It’s really a dirty tactic on the part of Monsignor Bugarin to smear Father Perrone,” Kolomjec said, claiming the photos are “just innuendo” and that church officials hope that people “let their minds wander” when they see them.
The photos are part of a confidential church file and were reviewed by the Attorney General's office, which did not bring charges due to a statute of limitations.
“All three people who went on this trip said nothing happened,” said Kolomjec, alleging church officials “were trying to blackmail Father Perrone into keeping quiet with those photos.”
“They really thought that we would drop everything and play nice because of these photos,” Kolomjec said.
The Detroit archdiocese declined comment on the photos, saying: “In all misconduct cases that fall under the jurisdiction of the Vatican, such as Father Perrone’s, it is not appropriate for the AOD to comment or speculate on what could be elements of the case to safeguard the confidentiality and integrity of the canonical process.”
According to police records, one of the boys on the camping trip told a detective that he was sexually abused on the trip, though another detective said the man made no such statements to him, other than saying they slept in a small tent and that their bodies were touching.
The other altar boy in the tent was James Fortenberry, a nurse who now lives in Huntsville, Alabama. He told the Free Pres: "I went on that camping trip. Nothing happened."
‘It was a different time’
Looking back, Perrone says he did nothing wrong by taking two altar boys on a camping trip. That's what priests did back then, he said. They engaged with youth in recreational activities with the hopes of teaching them religion along the way.
"I just wanted to be good and close and friendly with our kids, in those days the understanding of that was much different from what it is today," Perrone said, noting he would not take teens on a camping trip today.
Not because it's wrong, he said, but because times have changed.
His lawyer agrees.
"It was a different time. We're talking about the seventies. A lot has changed since then," Kolomjec said. "Obviously Father Perrone would never put himself in that position today and go on a camping trip with older teenage boys. But back then, this was done all the time."
Perrone's case is one of church law, which is different from the standards applied in the criminal justice system.
Under canon law in the Catholic church, "sexual abuse of a minor or vulnerable person includes sexual molestation or sexual exploitation of that individual — by violence, threat, abuse of authority or other behavior — by which an adult uses a minor or vulnerable person as an object of sexual gratification … It need not be a complete act of intercourse."
Moreover, that act does not need "to involve force, physical contact, or a discernible harmful outcome " in order for it be considered a "grave" violation of church law.
These are the standards that Perrone is being held to against the backdrop of a church that is still trying to dig itself out from a massive clergy abuse scandal involving thousands of victims worldwide.
'The weight of the world' on his shoulders
In the eyes of the Catholic church, the accuser’s inconsistencies were par for the course. His fragile state was typical of many clergy abuse victims who appear traumatized and unstable when they finally break their silence. So when his wife called the hotline in 2018, an investigation followed and concluded there was a “semblance of truth” to what he was saying.
So Perrone was removed and banned from having any contact with his parishioners.
"We’re not doing anything different here. We're not being overzealous. We’re doing what we have to do,” McGrath has previously said, stressing: "We treat serious all complaints that are brought forward.”
At issue in this case for Perrone has been the credibility of the accuser. His lawyers have at times attacked the man's credibility and character, arguing he is an unstable liar who can't be trusted and that he made this up to save his marriage.
But police reports cast the accuser in a different light, portraying him as a traumatized and devout Catholic who struggled with guilt and shame, feared his disclosures would lead to retaliation, so he shut down at times, then opened back up with the help of therapy.
According to church and police records, the now 54-year-old man first disclosed the sex abuse allegations in therapy sessions long before telling his wife, who then contacted the authorities.
"It seems like it's all a nightmare," Perrone said in a February interview with the Free Press. "I can't believe this is happening to me. Forty-one years of priesthood ... and this has happened? It seems not possible"
Perrone's lawyers allege the reason the church investigated Perrone was to avoid bad publicity. Prior to removing Perrone, the Associated Press was doing an investigation about clergy abuse in Michigan, and started asking questions about Perrone, who had been accused of fondling an altar boy, still remained in ministry.
Perrone’s lawyers argue that the archdiocese knew this accusation was weak and had no merit, but went hard core on Perrone to make themselves look tough on clergy abuse, and to get rid of a priest they didn't like. Specifically, they allege that Bugarin and LePage “browbeat” and “manipulated” the accuser into saying something salacious to warrant removing him.
“(R)ight now it’s time to tell us exactly what happened," LePage told the accuser in an interview four days before Perrone's removal. "Not fondling, not sodomized … You have to describe the act. … It has to be penis. It has to be hand. It has to be body parts, and you have to tell us that Eduard Perrone did this. That’s it. … And we’re going to be on our way to peace.”
That’s not browbeating, Le Page’s lawyer has argued. That’s a dogged investigator trying to get to the truth.
"She did not do anything wrong," said Le Page's lawyer, Macomb County chief counsel John Schapka, noting he settled her defamation suit with Perrone as a "tactical decision" to avoid a potential costly legal battle.
In the end, after nearly a year of breaking down during interviews and struggling to remember events, the accuser told investigators that he was fondled in the water during swim parties at the Perrone lake house, that Perrone had appeared “aroused” and that he wanted something done.
“Once he was done disclosing or providing the information, he came down to speed about (how) he felt a hundred percent better. He said, ‘God, this is the weight of the world off my shoulders,’" LaPage told Perrone’s lawyers in a deposition. “It was evident by his demeanor and his body language that it was a relief.”
Contact Tresa Baldas: tbaldas@freepress.com
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