January 31, 2022 • 47 mins
Mykhaylo Kofel’s accusations against the priests of Holy Cross Academy turned what appeared to be an open-and-shut murder case on it’s head. Those allegations would send both the prosecution and defence teams halfway around the world looking for the truth, and put the monastery on high alert.
Hosted by Paula Barros and Melanie Bartley
A Production of EXILE Content Studio
Wanna get in touch? Email us at hello@sacredscandalpodcast.com or follow us on Instagram @SacredScandal.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
I'm Paula Barrows and I'm Melanie Bartley, and this sacred scandal.
I believe Mikhailo was sexually abused by the priests. If
he says that it has happened, it happened. That never
seemed like an option to me. It's hard to accept,
you know, and I believe it now. I mean, what
(00:27):
me Hilo did was so awful, like their hats have
done something to make that come out of him. Obviously, again,
we don't know what happened, but we never saw anything,
We never felt anything. Do I think it's a possibility. Absolutely,
I totally think it's possible. Do I know for sure
(00:49):
if that happened. No, and I will never know the
sexual accusations of his abuse, for one thing, we never
heard anything. Never, It never happened. The initial evidence around
(01:13):
the campus of Holy Cross painted a picture of premeditated murder,
and certain things clearly stood out. The knife used in
the murder was part of a matching set from the
house at Barry University. Mike would need to bring that
with him days before the murder. There were also the
(01:33):
gloves and unused roll of duct tape he showed police
when they returned to the scene, and then there were
those odd, bloody footprints across campus. They looked like a
shapeless mudge because Mike only wore socks that night, maybe
as a way to keep his steps from being heard.
This evidence, plus Mike's own admission to the murder of
(01:55):
sister Michelle Lewis, mentors life was now destined for why
of two paths, life in prison or death row. But
the sexual abuse he alleged was happening to him at
Holy Cross could give his court appointed public defense team
another route to take to trial. If they could prove
that Mike was sexually abused and that it had truly
(02:18):
put him in an uncontrolled murderous rage, they would be
able to put together an insanity defense. That defense would
argue that Mike committed his crime because the alleged abuse
caused him to act irrationally and lose his ability to
determine right from wrong. To do that, the defense would
need to corroborate Mike's claims and try to prove that
(02:40):
he was telling the truth. So now both sides would
start compiling evidence to complete their sides of the story.
The defense would start building their case at the source
of those allegations Mihilo co fil When Mikhailo made allegations
of sexual abuse, I realized it was rather critical to
(03:05):
be very careful about revealing these allegations and incorporating them
as part of our defense if I didn't check them out.
This is Edith Georgie, who spent thirty five years as
an attorney with the Miami Dade Public Defender's Office. Edith
would lead Mike's defense team. We had Mikhailo polygraphed by
(03:27):
an independent person who's highly acclaimed, well respected. He passed,
and one of the first things I did was bring
down an expert that we've known for years from outside
of the state, who's very highly acclaimed person, and he
has tremendous experience with victims of violence. And I said,
(03:49):
do whatever you need to work with Mr ko Fell
and give me a report as to whether you think
the allegations are valid or not, because I don't want
to put them out there in any way, shape or
form if I don't believe them. And he was tested
for about four or five days, and this expert reported
(04:10):
to me that he absolutely believed what Mikaylo was saying.
The manner in which he expressed at the detail in
which he reported it, and in fact, this expert was
aghast at how sophisticated and horrific these so called fathers were.
(04:37):
But even the findings of these experts would not be
enough for the defense to fully prove that Mike was
telling the truth about his abuse. To get that information,
both the prosecution and Mike's lawyers would need to speak
with the monks and priests of Holy Cross, but that
would not be easy. There was an edict sent out
(04:59):
from Father Abbot and his counsel from the beginning that
no one was to speak with anyone from the outside,
meaning lawyers, investigators, police without an attorney present. Generally, in
a case like this where our client has friends and
(05:21):
associates in the community, we will immediately send out an
investigator to go to the location of those people, and
often people will speak to us and want to speak
to us voluntarily. In this case, they were forbidden to
do so by Father Abbot. At this point, Holy Crosses
(05:48):
Insurance Company stepped in as well. Church Mutual Insurance, which
covers religious organizations and handles liability cases for them, provided
lawyers for the monastic candidates and priests of Holy Cross
each monastic candidate, as I recall, was given his own lawyer,
so we had a about six lawyers. I think there
(06:12):
were four monastic candidates and Father Abbot and Father Damien
all Um funded by the insurance company. I believe that
funds and he claims against the school, and all of
these layers of lawyers made it difficult for Edith's team
to get any corroborating information from inside the school. I'd
(06:35):
say that I have never seen in my years doing
this kind of work any group who have been less
cooperative with the police, and to have a school not
allow police, and to have a school monitor every single
move that was made. The warnings that Father Abbott gave
(06:58):
he did not allow the monastic can it is to speak,
or anyone to speak voluntarily. Everything had to be pursuant
to a subpoena. But he warned them in a very
dramatic tone that they should not speak about anything personal
if they were asked anything personal. And from the beginning
it was clear that Father Abbott was concerned about what
(07:23):
might be coming out, which I found quite curious. Now
what would he be worried about, But there was something
to worry about. Soon after, Mike made the allegations of
sexual assault against father Went and father Damien. A sex
(07:45):
crime case was opened, and Gail Levine, the lead prosecutor
in the murder case, would also play a role here
and come up against those same challenges as the defense.
Immediately upon mc calo Cofel giving a statement to police
that he had been sexually abused at the Holy Cross Academy,
(08:07):
as law enforcement, we became extremely concerned about the other
children that were there. There were four other people under
the age of eighteen that were residing there. There was
one person over the age of eighteen. We wanted to
make sure that no one else was being heard. What
(08:28):
we immediately encountered was resistance, resistance from getting any contact
with the monastic candidates from the Ukraine. So we tried
very hard and I assembled a team to be available
on one day during one afternoon when all four of
us could begin by interviewing those four Ukrainian nationals. Immediately
(08:53):
we were given notice that a legal team had been
assembled and none of those students would come to the
State Attorney's office without subpoenas and without the presence of
their lawyers. What we thought was so shocking was really
within thirty six hours, a legal team had been assembled,
and police couldn't even go out and gather the witnesses
(09:18):
or the possible victims up, you know, and get information
about them and what was going on. We were prohibited
from doing that, and we were prohibited for several days,
and that made us more concerned, very concerned that they
were going to be told what to say and what
to do. When the legal teams finally did get subpoenas
(09:44):
to speak with the monastic candidates, they were surprised by
the demeanor of the boys. When we did get a
chance to meet those children, it was to us shocking
what we saw. They were clearly well groomed. They appeared thin,
but not malnourished, pale as if they hadn't seen the
(10:05):
Florida sun at all, and they were rigidly dressed white shirts,
black pants, black shoes. They certainly didn't come across as
teenage boys. They came across as small robots. They spoke
beautifully and clearly, but with a specific cadence in their voice.
(10:32):
When you asked them, do you know the difference between
good touching and bad touching? They would say, yes, did
anybody touch you in a bad place. No, how do
you like living at the monastery? Very good, Everything's fine.
(10:53):
So it was a matter of lack of a better word,
pulling teeth. We got nothing out of them, and the
lawyers from Church Mutual Insurance complicated things for the teams
investigating Mike's claims of sexual abuse. Here's Gail Avine again.
They were a huge insurance company. They provide the best
(11:15):
representation and they tangled a web that was very hard
for us to untangle. Every kid had an excellent lawyer.
Now I don't know what was done before the kid
got to me, but by the time the kid got
to me, the kid was schooled in what to say.
Nothing happened to me. So that's why I went to Ukraine.
(11:35):
I got permission from the State Department to go to Ukraine,
where these people were not represented by anybody. This decision
to go to Ukraine to speak with former monastic candidates
and the families of the boys in Miami was a
choice both the defense and prosecution would make in the
months after the murder. But what they didn't know was
that Church Mutual Insurance was also eager for answers, and
(11:59):
they were on step ahead on the way to Ukraine.
That's coming up after a break. Welcome back to Sacred Scandal.
(12:28):
In the weeks after me Hailokofil accused the priest at
Holy Cross of sexual abuse, both his defense team and
the prosecution started to look for any evidence of these claims,
but the priests and monastic candidates were shielded by lawyers
hired by the school's insurance company. With these obstacles preventing
them from getting any clear answers, both teams decided that
(12:50):
they would travel to Ukraine to talk to the monastic
candidates who left and the families of those that were
still in Miami, But before they could get there, a
private investigator hired by Church Mutual Insurance would beat them
to it. My name is Michael Zubas. I am recognized
worldwide as a premise liability negligent security, crime prevention, security
(13:17):
and police law enforcement agency Policies and Procedures expert. Zubas
was actually called onto the scene from the moment the
murder happened. He was a retired police chief from Miami
Shoes and knew many of the officers already on the scene.
He remained a part of the case as the murder
evolved into the investigation of sexual abuse claims. Unlike the
(13:39):
teams of Gail Avin and Edith Georgie, Zubas was granted
unrestricted access to interview the monastic candidates of Holy Cross, and,
like sex abuse cases at other churches, he would try
to get to the bottom of their allegations. Is there
any thing you look for, any signs, any like demeanor,
(14:00):
any hints that the person that is being accused would
actually be guilty. Well, I had a case and and
the choir director was sodomizing young men that were in
the choir. He groomed him and then he was having
sex with three or four of them. And uh, some
(14:24):
allegation came out from some parents. And then I interviewed
these individuals and they broke down and confessed to me
after a period of time, that this stuff was going on.
And did they deny it first? Those boys? Oh? Yeah,
because it's an embarrassing thing, you know. I mean, is
there a chance that these monastic candidates may have denied
it at first if they weren't really being pressed, or
(14:46):
you didn't have enough time to keep going asking them.
I think we had plenty of time, look nose, No,
you can get sworn statements and interviewing them. I mean,
you look him right in the eye, look him right
in the face. I never detected any uh, any one
of them lying. I never detected that. As a trained interrogator.
(15:08):
There's all kinds of signs, and these boys, not one
of them ever portrayed that they were being disingenuous. I
just never got that at all. Maybe somebody else had different,
you know, thoughts, but me I didn't. After speaking to
(15:32):
the monastic candidate's at Holy Cross, Zula started to come
to his own conclusions about the allegations against Father Went
and Father Damien. As we were progressing along with our investigation,
nothing was learned there that was in any way, shape
or form could have involved the two priests the accusation
(15:54):
made by Koful. There was no evidence that was discovered
that in any way, shape or form implicated them in
those allegations. But to be sure that those boys weren't
leaving anything unsaid, the insurance company decided that Zubs still
needed to dig deeper for the truth. There were, as
(16:16):
I recall, four or five monk candidates they're at Holy
Cross from the Ukraine. I guess whomever decided that it
would probably be a good idea for me to go
to the Ukraine and to locate the parents of all
five of these monks and interview them to see whether
(16:40):
or not they had ever received letters from their boys,
our phone calls from their boys. And also there were
a couple of that actually went back to the Ukraine
for vacation, and while they were there, did they express
any concern to throw an even linerity to what Kof
(17:01):
was saying. Was there sexual abuse on the part of
Abbot and Damien? And so that's what I did. Zuba says.
Father went was helpful and getting things set up for
him in Ukraine. The priest arranged for the private investigator
to work with the same translator he used when traveling there.
(17:25):
In two thousand one, Zubas would need a visa to
enter the country. He told us that he also used
to contact the father went to New Jersey to expedite
that process. So no, Father Abbott was very helpful and
very thrilled that I was going over there to seek
out the truth. Can I ask you a question, do
you think that that might be considered a conflict of interest?
(17:49):
Thinking that the person who is accused of the allegations
you're investigating is helping you, you know, secure an interpreter
and helping you with your travel and all of that.
Oh No, I wasn't considered a conflict of interest, uh
or even unethical. I mean, he didn't take part in
(18:10):
any of the interviews. He had not spoken to those
parents that I detected prior to be getting there. They
were the main focus. He didn't know who the driver
was that was hired. He didn't know the attorney. I
don't think, uh No, I did not view that as
a conflict of interest at all. I viewed it as
a very helpful thing because I was going to a
(18:31):
place in the world where you don't just travel to
and everything, kind of just like going to New York City.
After getting his PISA, he flew from Miami to Paris
and then onto Budapest in Hungary. A driver from Ukraine
would meet up with him and they'd crossed the border
into Transcarpathea. The following day off I went to a
(18:53):
town called ouge Garad checked into the big hotel that's
in that town, built by the Russians many many, many
years ago, a very stark no hot water, no blankets,
on the bed. It was a rough five nights I
spent there in uz Garad Zuvis and his driver would
then meet up with the translator and a local lawyer
(19:16):
who would certify the statements he got from the families.
We set out for the next five days, traveling all
over the Ukraine, tracking families down and getting sworn statements
from them. Here's another one here, it's uh Andrea her Stack.
(19:37):
That's one of the sword ones. The other sworn one
is um, I have a n etch semon yuk Yeah,
if you don't mind it, Like even if they sound
repetitive and they all say sort of the same thing,
I'd like to hear different snippets. Well, here it is
Alia her Stack. Stayed in all Across Monastery in Miami, Florida,
(20:02):
with the aim to become a monk of the above
monastery within November till August. During the above period of
no pressure, either physical or moral, was displayed towards me,
but I decided to leave my study there. The reason
of it is my persuasion that I can never be
(20:24):
a monk as far as I have no real vocation
to go into church. Regarding Sister Michelle, I can say
that She was very polite to all of us and
deserves only respect for her honorable job. Neither Father Gregory
nor Father Went never did me something that was wrong
(20:46):
from the moral or physical point of view. They never
told me things that made me feel uncomfortable. I never
saw a witness of moral or physical abusing displayed by
Father Gregory or Father Damien towards candidates of the monastery.
The other one, this is uh Ivanovitch Semenyuk, lived at
(21:14):
the monastery center village of consobo Uzgara District's comparta region
by my own wish from two thousand July thirty one.
As I am willing to be a clergyman. During my
studies at the center, I have got acquainted with Gregory Went.
He made the impression of a very good and respectable man.
(21:36):
He manifested kindness and understanding towards me. He never humiliated
me with words or deeds. There was no any sexual
abuse towards me from his side. What concerns Father Damien,
I have heard about him, but do not know him personally.
The present statement is written by myself personally, with had
(22:00):
any influence of a third person's and then the others
are in Russian. Like this statement from Elia Hertzock and
the other from the boy who was still in the
monastic training center. All of the former candidates and parents
in Ukraine were telling Zuba's the same thing. They never witnessed, experienced,
(22:22):
or heard of any sexual abuse at Holy Cross. In
interviewing the families of these monastic candidates, were the parents
afraid or alarmed at what had happened? They didn't express
that they were extremely thrilled and happy. They were thrilled
that their sons had this opportunity to leave this desperate,
(22:48):
horrible existence in the Ukraine. And when I say desperate horrible,
it's pretty rough there in the Ukraine, and particularly these
villages where I visited. I actually saw a seventy year
old woman pulling a plow. Two males were pulling the plow,
and she was guiding the plow and I asked where
(23:09):
the tractor was. They said, the tractor they used the
parts to bake bullets the Russians. And I said where's
the mule and she said, we ate it. So that's
the conditions that they live in there. And so these parents,
they were thrilled that their boys had this opportunity to
come to the United States of America, get an education,
(23:32):
and become priests someday. That's like a dream come true
for some of these families. The only place for Zula
said he didn't feel the same excitement was in the
village of Ovina Bistra by now the k Fills. Mike's
parents were already aware that their son was in prison
(23:53):
for killing sister Michelle, and the mother was um. She
was very volatile. At first, she was spewing spit and
yelling at me about her son being in jail, etcetera, etcetera.
She was very angry, and then during the interview she
(24:14):
actually turned around and went after her husband, Cofa's father
and she started to accuse him of his abuse to
when he was growing up in front of you, yes,
in front of all of us. Yes, that he was
harsh and he beat the kid and and did things
(24:35):
like that to cause the boy to grow up. And
maybe she was insinuating is why he did what he did.
Did she mention anything about sexual abuse at all? I
don't recall whether she actually narrowed it down to sexual abuse,
and I don't think that she did. I believe she
just spoke of just abuse that the father born on
(25:01):
that child when he was growing up. He was a
cocky little guy who actually was very cocky and nasty
to me. Alcohol was involved there that because I remember
him drinking that day when we were there. Did they
know you were coming? Were they expecting you? No, they
were not. Actually, some of these homes were very difficult
(25:24):
to locate. I mean when we finally located it, it
took us almost a half a day to find this house.
And when we knocked on the door, they had north
the idea who we were. But certainly it was explained
to them, and they know their sons in jail in America,
so it wasn't like we were from some outer space
Mars or something. We had those credentials. So they did
(25:47):
welcome us into the house because she kept screaming that
she wanted us to help her son get out of
prison and come home. That was her whole purpose of
even talking to us. After sending off the lawyer to
have the sworn statements notarized in Kiev, Zula's returned to
(26:08):
the United States with no new evidence of sexual abuse
at Holy Cross weeks later. By the time Edith Georgie
and her defense team arrived in Ukraine. The tone around
her client's childhood home changed after Mikailo's arrest. His father
apparently stopped drinking and reformed himself, so when we were there,
(26:34):
he was in good shape. And oh the parents were
as cooperative as they could be. They felt like they'd
been hoodwinked. Well, yeah, both of his parents told me.
At the beginning, Abbott promised regular communication, they'd see him
back frequently, and as it turned out, his mail was
(26:59):
mon a turred. Phone calls were severely limited. He could
only return to the Ukraine when he had to because
of his passport or visa issues, and when he did
come back, he was always accompanied by Abbott or Damien,
who wouldn't let him out of their sight, under their
(27:20):
control completely. The parents realized by the first time he
came back that this was not what they bargained for,
but he wasn't free to speak. They didn't know any better.
Things were told to them that he was doing fine.
(27:41):
The last time he visited, the parents and the local
priest both well. They all noticed a real change in him,
a real quietness, a real depression in him, and they
tried to talk to him in their own way and
see if maybe he wouldn't go back. But he didn't
have the strength. He was under their control. Almost hypnotically.
(28:08):
Both Edith's and the insurance company's investigator were in Ukraine
looking for any shred of evidence about sexual abuse, and
their team got a lot of the same answers. Though
the defense was delayed in their travel, They were, however,
able to spend more time with me Hilo, which gave
them a different set of tools for investigating the claims
of abuse. They could use what Mike told them about
(28:30):
his experience and asked the former monastic can that it's
more specific questions about things they may have noticed at
the monastery. Edith believed that she'd found something when she
spoke to Ilia Hertzog, who we heard from on our
last few episodes. He was no longer a monk and
living back in Ukraine. We investigator as much as we
(28:52):
could the data that Mikhailo was giving us to see
if it checked with what the other monk candidates would say,
and it did. Ilia. We spent some time with and
Ilia reported the same circumstances that Mikhaelo had described to
(29:12):
us that would allow the opportunity to be there, that Mikhailo,
only Mikailo, was allowed into Damien's room privately, and that
Mikaylo was called in there frequently by Damien, and that
Mikaelo was heard to go downstairs late at night after
the other candidates were supposed to be in their rooms.
(29:34):
You know, the dorm was run very military style. You
could only be in your rooms at a certain time,
but once you're in your room, you have to stay
in your room until you have permission to come out.
So everybody was kind of listening to see if people
obeyed those rules. No one, of course, could ever say
I saw it happen, because there were, as usual, no witnesses.
(29:58):
But everything checked out, The whole picture checked out. It
wasn't much, but it was something Edith could take back
to Miami to try to build her defense. But even
now Mike was still up against the death penalty. And
(30:20):
not long after Edith and her team were gone, the
third set of investigators arrived in trans Carpathia. This time
it was Assistant State Attorney Gail Levine and Detective Larry
Billyhu who originally heard me Hailo's confession. Why did it
seem important? For your team to go to Ukraine. Well,
(30:41):
he made an allegation and it started way back when,
and that would have something to do with his sentencing
over here. I would imagine. I traveled to the Ukraine
where his parents were, and we introduced ourselves and we're
very nice in the beginning. Yeah, we talked to them
(31:02):
and the father said that, yeah, he would sleep in
the baby with this sometime. I said, okay, well did
you do anything to him? And he absolutely not. You know,
because we had to go through an interpreter. What would
you say your biggest takeaways where or did you find
out anything that you didn't know in the Ukraine? No,
(31:27):
not really. I assume once we approached them about were
you molesting your child, all we got was he's slept
in our beds sometimes nothing ever happened, and that's just
the way it is. So I assumed they were going
to deny and there's nothing I could have attacked them with.
(31:50):
And that was pretty much the end of the story
as far as the Ukraine. Both sides traveled halfway across
the world without any explosive statements or concrete evidence that
the sex abuse allegations were true. But like everything else,
in this story, the biggest revelations were in the same
(32:11):
place they always were, inside the monastery at Holy Cross.
Stay with us, We'll be back after a break. Welcome
back to Sacred Scandal. I'm Paula Burrows and I'm Melanie Bartley.
(32:37):
After returning from Ukraine without a smoking gun, Edith Georgie's
defense team needed to find something in Miami that would
strengthen her insanity defense. To do that, her team had
to solidify the sexual abuse allegations against the priests of
Holy Cross. But with legal proceedings of capital cases usually
taking years before going to trial, both sides were worried
(32:59):
that they were up against the clock. They were concerned
that once the monastic candidate's visas expired, they would return
to Ukraine and be unable to appear as witnesses during
a trial. So a judge gave permission to the poen
of the monastic candidates and record videos of their testimony
for future use, so we already had part of the
(33:21):
trial in fact preserved. The month candidates had what's called
perpetuated testimony, so we actually preserved their testimony to be
used in the future for the defense. These testimonies were
led by Edith and Ray tasse If her co counsel
on the case, and these interviews would help inch the
(33:42):
defense towards getting the information that we're looking for. They
had been programmed to some degree, some more than others,
and so you know, they all had little bits and
pieces of information that added to the credibility of the
story that mackay had told and of the unique contexts
(34:04):
or environment that they were in in terms of isolation
and thought control and behavioral control. What were those bits
and pieces that you remember helping his case in that sense? Well,
I remember details about when they traveled and Petro staying
in the room with went. I thought that was highly unusual.
(34:29):
The traveling Ray mentioned is something Mike told us about
as well. Over the years, the priests would take the
monastic candidates on trips. They went to Disney World, North Carolina, Naples,
and Santa bell Island now in Santa Belle at the
Holiday Inn. You stayed in a room with one of
the other monastic candidates, correct, I think so noncons search.
(34:54):
This is basil coop being asked about those trips. A
bell father abbot stayed in a room and slept in
the same room with Petro. Correct. Yeah, And you know
on the trip to Santa Belle that Father Damion stayed
(35:15):
with and slept in the same room with Mikailo. Correct.
And you stayed in a room with one of the
other manastic candidates correct. Okay. Now to the trip to
North Carolina, you went again as a group. Correct. And
in North Carolina you stayed in cabins. Correct. Okay, come
(35:41):
in cabins. It was each individual little cabin where people stayed. Correct.
We're staying country all of us poll book in London,
I was in lond com Okay. Well, we know that
Father Damion again slept in the same room m with
(36:03):
with them. It's three bedrooms and Mona Captin, Somano and
Cavanams and the Marvel and Diane Sash. So the trips
to North Carolina, you stayed in a cabinet. There were
three bedrooms. Correct, Father Damien and Mikailo stayed in a
(36:25):
bedroom together and stopped in the same room. Correct. Father
Abbot stayed in the same room and slept in the
same room as the Petro. Correct. And you stayed in
a bedroom with one of the other men, asked candidates. Correct,
isn't it a fact in those bedrooms in that cabin
(36:48):
in North Carolina, and each bedroom there was only one bed. Yeah, okay.
So in North Carolina, father Abbott and Petro stupped in
the same bed correct. And in North Carolina Father Damia
and Makilo slupped in the same bed correct. Ray and
(37:15):
Edith also asked him and asked the candidates if they
heard someone walking around their house at night after curfew,
they remembered Mihilo told them he would be summoned to
father Damien's room at that time. Now, as we've seen
the pictures, you and three other candidates slept in the
bedroom with the blond beds right slap to the bedroom
(37:38):
with the four beds. Okay um, And that is very
near the hallway where the stairway is. It's around stairway, yes, okay.
And everyone had lights out of chat right to say
we're not supposed to get up, right, you can't go
(38:02):
You can get up to go to the bathroom. You
don't have to ask the permission for that, right, But
to go downstairs at the ten o'clock you need to
have permission for father has it? Yeah, okay? And if
you want to get that permission. You ask in advance
if it's okay for you to go downstairs after ten o'clock. Right, So,
(38:24):
as of ten o'clock everyone should be in their beds.
You four in the room with the four beds, and
Mikailo in his room a single room, and Pedro if
he's sleeping there in his room right now. Many times
during the night, you heard footsteps going up and down
(38:47):
that stairway, didn't you, And you never fothered find out
who that was or what was happening, did you? You
knew it was either Mikayl or Petrol. Right, there's none
of your for people got up and went downstairs. Yeah, yea,
(39:09):
one of you guys are getting out. So it happen
to be Mikailo or Petrol right the way Petro's room
had separate entrance through another steroids, didn't it. So hearing
these s footsteps going on the downstairs, and I'm talking
about before March, before this horrible thing happened in March,
(39:33):
you heard those footsteps many times, but you never found
out why. Most of these testimonies took place about eight
months after the murder at Holy Cross. By then, the
biggest silence of all was from Father Went and Father Damien. Interestingly,
(39:56):
Damien and Abbott moved off the campus and moved to
another location as soon as this whole case broke because
they didn't want to appear to be living with the
young candidates anymore. They had to separate themselves. Aside from
a few press releases sent out by a pr firm
and letters to Holy Cross parents, the priest said little
(40:19):
publicly about the murder or the allegations against them. Almost
a year and a half after Mike was arrested, Gale
and Edith were finally able to depost the priests. Father
Went and Father Damien each appeared separately with their lawyer present,
but on the advice of those lawyers, both priests refused
(40:40):
to answer almost every single question they were asked. They
resisted and pleaded the Fifth Amendment for hours. How did
you get in touch with the boys in Ukraine? Fifth Amendment?
Are you supporting them or their families in any way?
Fifth Amendment? All of those types of things, you know,
were questions that Ms Georgie was propound that really didn't
(41:00):
have a whole lot to do with the murder, But
in deposition in the discovery process allows her to build
a defense for her client through the questions of state witnesses.
So it wasn't an inappropriate questions, but it was just
became a lot more suspicious with the taking of the
Fifth Amendment. They went so far as to appeal the
(41:21):
lower court, the trial court ruling that they had to
answer the questions, and they set in motion and appeal
and then we had to go back to court and
the judge had to be present for the depositions, and
the judge had a rule on every question before they
answered the question. So instead of the deposition taking maybe
eight hours or over the course of two days, maybe
(41:44):
a course of over sixteen hours, the depositions took days,
over the course of maybe five seven days. So by
that point all the red flags were there and just
more and more skeptical and more and more concerned about
the safe of the kids there. From talking to the
(42:05):
investigators on this case, we knew some of the details
about these depositions, but because the sessions weren't recorded, we
never got to hear them. So this year we request
the transcripts of those conversations so we could get a
sense of what sorts of questions the priests were avoiding.
The documents are hundreds of pages long, and scrolling through
(42:26):
them feels like an infinite loop of the same responses
over and over again. So what we're looking at is
the document. We're looking at the document that is the
transcription of the entire questioning of Father Went. It is.
So the first one is Father Went deposition from November
(42:49):
two thousand and two. Yeah, and there is about two
hundred pages in which he basically refuses to answer of
the questions. It's really really bizarre. Um. Yeah, So so
over here on page fifty four, they basically asked him
(43:09):
why he decided to become a priest. Yeah, he said,
relying upon the advice of my counsel due to the
false allegations against me and my well founded fear that
these unjust investigations could lead to unfair charges and prosecution.
I am reluctantly forced to invoke privilege and refused to
answer based on my constitutional rights guaranteed by the first
(43:32):
fifth and fourteen Amendments. And it's crazy because I mean,
I understand that if they ask him things about the
sex abuse or anything like that, but it's like really basic,
really basic questions, like like I want to ask you
what is your current profession or occupation? I involved the
(43:53):
privilege on the ground stated previously what do you do
for a living? Same thing? And then the creeze see
as to one I think is do you know what
Holy Cross Monastery is? Fifth Amendment? What is Holy Cross Academy?
Fifth Amendment? Where do you presently live same, same, same like?
(44:15):
I mean, it's hundreds of pages. During these depositions with
Father Wynn and Father Damien, Prosecutor Gail Levin started to
notice something interesting happening between her side and the defense team.
I've known miss Georgian for many years. She's a fine lawyer,
but usually we're on opposite sides of the table. We
(44:38):
found ourselves going into the deposition room and just sort
of the way it was, we sat on the same
side of the table and the priests would sit on
the opposite side of the table. Usually my witnesses sit
on the same side. After the second day we did that,
I sort of looked at Miss Georgie and I said, Edith,
(44:59):
we're on the same side of the table this time,
and we sort of had a chuckle about that. And
I think at that point during those depositions we knew
that we had a very unique situation on our hands.
As the case went on, Mike's lawyer, Edith felt like
prosecutors were sitting on more than just her side of
(45:20):
the table, and that even Gay Levine was starting to
feel the same way about Mike's allegations. I absolutely believe
he was sexually abused, and I believe that the prosecutor
felt the same. In searching for those answers, both sides
would stumble across another ongoing investigation into Holy Cross. In
(45:44):
the years before the murder of Sister Michelle, the monastery's
own bishop reached out to the Vatican. The bishop was
trying to find out whether father went and Father Damien,
we're really priests at all. We'll go there next time
on Sacred's handle. Sacred Scandal is a production of Exile
(46:12):
Content Studio in partnership with I Heart Radio is Mike
la Podcast Network. Sacred Scandal was created and produced by
Melanie Bartley and me Paula Barros. Our senior producer is
Dennis Funk of Written in Air. The executive producers are
Rose Red and Nando Villa. Production mixing and sound design
(46:36):
by Helena de Grout, our production assistant is Imani Leonard.
The show is fact checked by Kimberly Winston. Original music
and final audio mixing comes from Patrick Hart, and special
thanks on this episode to Ariel Stevenson, Corey Chikowski, and
Travis Royd. If you'd like to reach out, email us
(47:00):
at hello at Sacred Scandal podcast dot com, and you
can follow us on Instagram at Sacred Scandal m
I'm Paula Barrows and I'm Melanie Bartley, and this sacred scandal.
I believe Mikhailo was sexually abused by the priests. If
he says that it has happened, it happened. That never
seemed like an option to me. It's hard to accept,
you know, and I believe it now. I mean, what
(00:27):
me Hilo did was so awful, like their hats have
done something to make that come out of him. Obviously, again,
we don't know what happened, but we never saw anything,
We never felt anything. Do I think it's a possibility. Absolutely,
I totally think it's possible. Do I know for sure
(00:49):
if that happened. No, and I will never know the
sexual accusations of his abuse, for one thing, we never
heard anything. Never, It never happened. The initial evidence around
(01:13):
the campus of Holy Cross painted a picture of premeditated murder,
and certain things clearly stood out. The knife used in
the murder was part of a matching set from the
house at Barry University. Mike would need to bring that
with him days before the murder. There were also the
(01:33):
gloves and unused roll of duct tape he showed police
when they returned to the scene, and then there were
those odd, bloody footprints across campus. They looked like a
shapeless mudge because Mike only wore socks that night, maybe
as a way to keep his steps from being heard.
This evidence, plus Mike's own admission to the murder of
(01:55):
sister Michelle Lewis, mentors life was now destined for why
of two paths, life in prison or death row. But
the sexual abuse he alleged was happening to him at
Holy Cross could give his court appointed public defense team
another route to take to trial. If they could prove
that Mike was sexually abused and that it had truly
(02:18):
put him in an uncontrolled murderous rage, they would be
able to put together an insanity defense. That defense would
argue that Mike committed his crime because the alleged abuse
caused him to act irrationally and lose his ability to
determine right from wrong. To do that, the defense would
need to corroborate Mike's claims and try to prove that
(02:40):
he was telling the truth. So now both sides would
start compiling evidence to complete their sides of the story.
The defense would start building their case at the source
of those allegations Mihilo co fil When Mikhailo made allegations
of sexual abuse, I realized it was rather critical to
(03:05):
be very careful about revealing these allegations and incorporating them
as part of our defense if I didn't check them out.
This is Edith Georgie, who spent thirty five years as
an attorney with the Miami Dade Public Defender's Office. Edith
would lead Mike's defense team. We had Mikhailo polygraphed by
(03:27):
an independent person who's highly acclaimed, well respected. He passed,
and one of the first things I did was bring
down an expert that we've known for years from outside
of the state, who's very highly acclaimed person, and he
has tremendous experience with victims of violence. And I said,
(03:49):
do whatever you need to work with Mr ko Fell
and give me a report as to whether you think
the allegations are valid or not, because I don't want
to put them out there in any way, shape or
form if I don't believe them. And he was tested
for about four or five days, and this expert reported
(04:10):
to me that he absolutely believed what Mikaylo was saying.
The manner in which he expressed at the detail in
which he reported it, and in fact, this expert was
aghast at how sophisticated and horrific these so called fathers were.
(04:37):
But even the findings of these experts would not be
enough for the defense to fully prove that Mike was
telling the truth about his abuse. To get that information,
both the prosecution and Mike's lawyers would need to speak
with the monks and priests of Holy Cross, but that
would not be easy. There was an edict sent out
(04:59):
from Father Abbot and his counsel from the beginning that
no one was to speak with anyone from the outside,
meaning lawyers, investigators, police without an attorney present. Generally, in
a case like this where our client has friends and
(05:21):
associates in the community, we will immediately send out an
investigator to go to the location of those people, and
often people will speak to us and want to speak
to us voluntarily. In this case, they were forbidden to
do so by Father Abbot. At this point, Holy Crosses
(05:48):
Insurance Company stepped in as well. Church Mutual Insurance, which
covers religious organizations and handles liability cases for them, provided
lawyers for the monastic candidates and priests of Holy Cross
each monastic candidate, as I recall, was given his own lawyer,
so we had a about six lawyers. I think there
(06:12):
were four monastic candidates and Father Abbot and Father Damien
all Um funded by the insurance company. I believe that
funds and he claims against the school, and all of
these layers of lawyers made it difficult for Edith's team
to get any corroborating information from inside the school. I'd
(06:35):
say that I have never seen in my years doing
this kind of work any group who have been less
cooperative with the police, and to have a school not
allow police, and to have a school monitor every single
move that was made. The warnings that Father Abbott gave
(06:58):
he did not allow the monastic can it is to speak,
or anyone to speak voluntarily. Everything had to be pursuant
to a subpoena. But he warned them in a very
dramatic tone that they should not speak about anything personal
if they were asked anything personal. And from the beginning
it was clear that Father Abbott was concerned about what
(07:23):
might be coming out, which I found quite curious. Now
what would he be worried about, But there was something
to worry about. Soon after, Mike made the allegations of
sexual assault against father Went and father Damien. A sex
(07:45):
crime case was opened, and Gail Levine, the lead prosecutor
in the murder case, would also play a role here
and come up against those same challenges as the defense.
Immediately upon mc calo Cofel giving a statement to police
that he had been sexually abused at the Holy Cross Academy,
(08:07):
as law enforcement, we became extremely concerned about the other
children that were there. There were four other people under
the age of eighteen that were residing there. There was
one person over the age of eighteen. We wanted to
make sure that no one else was being heard. What
(08:28):
we immediately encountered was resistance, resistance from getting any contact
with the monastic candidates from the Ukraine. So we tried
very hard and I assembled a team to be available
on one day during one afternoon when all four of
us could begin by interviewing those four Ukrainian nationals. Immediately
(08:53):
we were given notice that a legal team had been
assembled and none of those students would come to the
State Attorney's office without subpoenas and without the presence of
their lawyers. What we thought was so shocking was really
within thirty six hours, a legal team had been assembled,
and police couldn't even go out and gather the witnesses
(09:18):
or the possible victims up, you know, and get information
about them and what was going on. We were prohibited
from doing that, and we were prohibited for several days,
and that made us more concerned, very concerned that they
were going to be told what to say and what
to do. When the legal teams finally did get subpoenas
(09:44):
to speak with the monastic candidates, they were surprised by
the demeanor of the boys. When we did get a
chance to meet those children, it was to us shocking
what we saw. They were clearly well groomed. They appeared thin,
but not malnourished, pale as if they hadn't seen the
(10:05):
Florida sun at all, and they were rigidly dressed white shirts,
black pants, black shoes. They certainly didn't come across as
teenage boys. They came across as small robots. They spoke
beautifully and clearly, but with a specific cadence in their voice.
(10:32):
When you asked them, do you know the difference between
good touching and bad touching? They would say, yes, did
anybody touch you in a bad place. No, how do
you like living at the monastery? Very good, Everything's fine.
(10:53):
So it was a matter of lack of a better word,
pulling teeth. We got nothing out of them, and the
lawyers from Church Mutual Insurance complicated things for the teams
investigating Mike's claims of sexual abuse. Here's Gail Avine again.
They were a huge insurance company. They provide the best
(11:15):
representation and they tangled a web that was very hard
for us to untangle. Every kid had an excellent lawyer.
Now I don't know what was done before the kid
got to me, but by the time the kid got
to me, the kid was schooled in what to say.
Nothing happened to me. So that's why I went to Ukraine.
(11:35):
I got permission from the State Department to go to Ukraine,
where these people were not represented by anybody. This decision
to go to Ukraine to speak with former monastic candidates
and the families of the boys in Miami was a
choice both the defense and prosecution would make in the
months after the murder. But what they didn't know was
that Church Mutual Insurance was also eager for answers, and
(11:59):
they were on step ahead on the way to Ukraine.
That's coming up after a break. Welcome back to Sacred Scandal.
(12:28):
In the weeks after me Hailokofil accused the priest at
Holy Cross of sexual abuse, both his defense team and
the prosecution started to look for any evidence of these claims,
but the priests and monastic candidates were shielded by lawyers
hired by the school's insurance company. With these obstacles preventing
them from getting any clear answers, both teams decided that
(12:50):
they would travel to Ukraine to talk to the monastic
candidates who left and the families of those that were
still in Miami, But before they could get there, a
private investigator hired by Church Mutual Insurance would beat them
to it. My name is Michael Zubas. I am recognized
worldwide as a premise liability negligent security, crime prevention, security
(13:17):
and police law enforcement agency Policies and Procedures expert. Zubas
was actually called onto the scene from the moment the
murder happened. He was a retired police chief from Miami
Shoes and knew many of the officers already on the scene.
He remained a part of the case as the murder
evolved into the investigation of sexual abuse claims. Unlike the
(13:39):
teams of Gail Avin and Edith Georgie, Zubas was granted
unrestricted access to interview the monastic candidates of Holy Cross, and,
like sex abuse cases at other churches, he would try
to get to the bottom of their allegations. Is there
any thing you look for, any signs, any like demeanor,
(14:00):
any hints that the person that is being accused would
actually be guilty. Well, I had a case and and
the choir director was sodomizing young men that were in
the choir. He groomed him and then he was having
sex with three or four of them. And uh, some
(14:24):
allegation came out from some parents. And then I interviewed
these individuals and they broke down and confessed to me
after a period of time, that this stuff was going on.
And did they deny it first? Those boys? Oh? Yeah,
because it's an embarrassing thing, you know. I mean, is
there a chance that these monastic candidates may have denied
it at first if they weren't really being pressed, or
(14:46):
you didn't have enough time to keep going asking them.
I think we had plenty of time, look nose, No,
you can get sworn statements and interviewing them. I mean,
you look him right in the eye, look him right
in the face. I never detected any uh, any one
of them lying. I never detected that. As a trained interrogator.
(15:08):
There's all kinds of signs, and these boys, not one
of them ever portrayed that they were being disingenuous. I
just never got that at all. Maybe somebody else had different,
you know, thoughts, but me I didn't. After speaking to
(15:32):
the monastic candidate's at Holy Cross, Zula started to come
to his own conclusions about the allegations against Father Went
and Father Damien. As we were progressing along with our investigation,
nothing was learned there that was in any way, shape
or form could have involved the two priests the accusation
(15:54):
made by Koful. There was no evidence that was discovered
that in any way, shape or form implicated them in
those allegations. But to be sure that those boys weren't
leaving anything unsaid, the insurance company decided that Zubs still
needed to dig deeper for the truth. There were, as
(16:16):
I recall, four or five monk candidates they're at Holy
Cross from the Ukraine. I guess whomever decided that it
would probably be a good idea for me to go
to the Ukraine and to locate the parents of all
five of these monks and interview them to see whether
(16:40):
or not they had ever received letters from their boys,
our phone calls from their boys. And also there were
a couple of that actually went back to the Ukraine
for vacation, and while they were there, did they express
any concern to throw an even linerity to what Kof
(17:01):
was saying. Was there sexual abuse on the part of
Abbot and Damien? And so that's what I did. Zuba says.
Father went was helpful and getting things set up for
him in Ukraine. The priest arranged for the private investigator
to work with the same translator he used when traveling there.
(17:25):
In two thousand one, Zubas would need a visa to
enter the country. He told us that he also used
to contact the father went to New Jersey to expedite
that process. So no, Father Abbott was very helpful and
very thrilled that I was going over there to seek
out the truth. Can I ask you a question, do
you think that that might be considered a conflict of interest?
(17:49):
Thinking that the person who is accused of the allegations
you're investigating is helping you, you know, secure an interpreter
and helping you with your travel and all of that.
Oh No, I wasn't considered a conflict of interest, uh
or even unethical. I mean, he didn't take part in
(18:10):
any of the interviews. He had not spoken to those
parents that I detected prior to be getting there. They
were the main focus. He didn't know who the driver
was that was hired. He didn't know the attorney. I
don't think, uh No, I did not view that as
a conflict of interest at all. I viewed it as
a very helpful thing because I was going to a
(18:31):
place in the world where you don't just travel to
and everything, kind of just like going to New York City.
After getting his PISA, he flew from Miami to Paris
and then onto Budapest in Hungary. A driver from Ukraine
would meet up with him and they'd crossed the border
into Transcarpathea. The following day off I went to a
(18:53):
town called ouge Garad checked into the big hotel that's
in that town, built by the Russians many many, many
years ago, a very stark no hot water, no blankets,
on the bed. It was a rough five nights I
spent there in uz Garad Zuvis and his driver would
then meet up with the translator and a local lawyer
(19:16):
who would certify the statements he got from the families.
We set out for the next five days, traveling all
over the Ukraine, tracking families down and getting sworn statements
from them. Here's another one here, it's uh Andrea her Stack.
(19:37):
That's one of the sword ones. The other sworn one
is um, I have a n etch semon yuk Yeah,
if you don't mind it, Like even if they sound
repetitive and they all say sort of the same thing,
I'd like to hear different snippets. Well, here it is
Alia her Stack. Stayed in all Across Monastery in Miami, Florida,
(20:02):
with the aim to become a monk of the above
monastery within November till August. During the above period of
no pressure, either physical or moral, was displayed towards me,
but I decided to leave my study there. The reason
of it is my persuasion that I can never be
(20:24):
a monk as far as I have no real vocation
to go into church. Regarding Sister Michelle, I can say
that She was very polite to all of us and
deserves only respect for her honorable job. Neither Father Gregory
nor Father Went never did me something that was wrong
(20:46):
from the moral or physical point of view. They never
told me things that made me feel uncomfortable. I never
saw a witness of moral or physical abusing displayed by
Father Gregory or Father Damien towards candidates of the monastery.
The other one, this is uh Ivanovitch Semenyuk, lived at
(21:14):
the monastery center village of consobo Uzgara District's comparta region
by my own wish from two thousand July thirty one.
As I am willing to be a clergyman. During my
studies at the center, I have got acquainted with Gregory Went.
He made the impression of a very good and respectable man.
(21:36):
He manifested kindness and understanding towards me. He never humiliated
me with words or deeds. There was no any sexual
abuse towards me from his side. What concerns Father Damien,
I have heard about him, but do not know him personally.
The present statement is written by myself personally, with had
(22:00):
any influence of a third person's and then the others
are in Russian. Like this statement from Elia Hertzock and
the other from the boy who was still in the
monastic training center. All of the former candidates and parents
in Ukraine were telling Zuba's the same thing. They never witnessed, experienced,
(22:22):
or heard of any sexual abuse at Holy Cross. In
interviewing the families of these monastic candidates, were the parents
afraid or alarmed at what had happened? They didn't express
that they were extremely thrilled and happy. They were thrilled
that their sons had this opportunity to leave this desperate,
(22:48):
horrible existence in the Ukraine. And when I say desperate horrible,
it's pretty rough there in the Ukraine, and particularly these
villages where I visited. I actually saw a seventy year
old woman pulling a plow. Two males were pulling the plow,
and she was guiding the plow and I asked where
(23:09):
the tractor was. They said, the tractor they used the
parts to bake bullets the Russians. And I said where's
the mule and she said, we ate it. So that's
the conditions that they live in there. And so these parents,
they were thrilled that their boys had this opportunity to
come to the United States of America, get an education,
(23:32):
and become priests someday. That's like a dream come true
for some of these families. The only place for Zula
said he didn't feel the same excitement was in the
village of Ovina Bistra by now the k Fills. Mike's
parents were already aware that their son was in prison
(23:53):
for killing sister Michelle, and the mother was um. She
was very volatile. At first, she was spewing spit and
yelling at me about her son being in jail, etcetera, etcetera.
She was very angry, and then during the interview she
(24:14):
actually turned around and went after her husband, Cofa's father
and she started to accuse him of his abuse to
when he was growing up in front of you, yes,
in front of all of us. Yes, that he was
harsh and he beat the kid and and did things
(24:35):
like that to cause the boy to grow up. And
maybe she was insinuating is why he did what he did.
Did she mention anything about sexual abuse at all? I
don't recall whether she actually narrowed it down to sexual abuse,
and I don't think that she did. I believe she
just spoke of just abuse that the father born on
(25:01):
that child when he was growing up. He was a
cocky little guy who actually was very cocky and nasty
to me. Alcohol was involved there that because I remember
him drinking that day when we were there. Did they
know you were coming? Were they expecting you? No, they
were not. Actually, some of these homes were very difficult
(25:24):
to locate. I mean when we finally located it, it
took us almost a half a day to find this house.
And when we knocked on the door, they had north
the idea who we were. But certainly it was explained
to them, and they know their sons in jail in America,
so it wasn't like we were from some outer space
Mars or something. We had those credentials. So they did
(25:47):
welcome us into the house because she kept screaming that
she wanted us to help her son get out of
prison and come home. That was her whole purpose of
even talking to us. After sending off the lawyer to
have the sworn statements notarized in Kiev, Zula's returned to
(26:08):
the United States with no new evidence of sexual abuse
at Holy Cross weeks later. By the time Edith Georgie
and her defense team arrived in Ukraine. The tone around
her client's childhood home changed after Mikailo's arrest. His father
apparently stopped drinking and reformed himself, so when we were there,
(26:34):
he was in good shape. And oh the parents were
as cooperative as they could be. They felt like they'd
been hoodwinked. Well, yeah, both of his parents told me.
At the beginning, Abbott promised regular communication, they'd see him
back frequently, and as it turned out, his mail was
(26:59):
mon a turred. Phone calls were severely limited. He could
only return to the Ukraine when he had to because
of his passport or visa issues, and when he did
come back, he was always accompanied by Abbott or Damien,
who wouldn't let him out of their sight, under their
(27:20):
control completely. The parents realized by the first time he
came back that this was not what they bargained for,
but he wasn't free to speak. They didn't know any better.
Things were told to them that he was doing fine.
(27:41):
The last time he visited, the parents and the local
priest both well. They all noticed a real change in him,
a real quietness, a real depression in him, and they
tried to talk to him in their own way and
see if maybe he wouldn't go back. But he didn't
have the strength. He was under their control. Almost hypnotically.
(28:08):
Both Edith's and the insurance company's investigator were in Ukraine
looking for any shred of evidence about sexual abuse, and
their team got a lot of the same answers. Though
the defense was delayed in their travel, They were, however,
able to spend more time with me Hilo, which gave
them a different set of tools for investigating the claims
of abuse. They could use what Mike told them about
(28:30):
his experience and asked the former monastic can that it's
more specific questions about things they may have noticed at
the monastery. Edith believed that she'd found something when she
spoke to Ilia Hertzog, who we heard from on our
last few episodes. He was no longer a monk and
living back in Ukraine. We investigator as much as we
(28:52):
could the data that Mikhailo was giving us to see
if it checked with what the other monk candidates would say,
and it did. Ilia. We spent some time with and
Ilia reported the same circumstances that Mikhaelo had described to
(29:12):
us that would allow the opportunity to be there, that Mikhailo,
only Mikailo, was allowed into Damien's room privately, and that
Mikaylo was called in there frequently by Damien, and that
Mikaelo was heard to go downstairs late at night after
the other candidates were supposed to be in their rooms.
(29:34):
You know, the dorm was run very military style. You
could only be in your rooms at a certain time,
but once you're in your room, you have to stay
in your room until you have permission to come out.
So everybody was kind of listening to see if people
obeyed those rules. No one, of course, could ever say
I saw it happen, because there were, as usual, no witnesses.
(29:58):
But everything checked out, The whole picture checked out. It
wasn't much, but it was something Edith could take back
to Miami to try to build her defense. But even
now Mike was still up against the death penalty. And
(30:20):
not long after Edith and her team were gone, the
third set of investigators arrived in trans Carpathia. This time
it was Assistant State Attorney Gail Levine and Detective Larry
Billyhu who originally heard me Hailo's confession. Why did it
seem important? For your team to go to Ukraine. Well,
(30:41):
he made an allegation and it started way back when,
and that would have something to do with his sentencing
over here. I would imagine. I traveled to the Ukraine
where his parents were, and we introduced ourselves and we're
very nice in the beginning. Yeah, we talked to them
(31:02):
and the father said that, yeah, he would sleep in
the baby with this sometime. I said, okay, well did
you do anything to him? And he absolutely not. You know,
because we had to go through an interpreter. What would
you say your biggest takeaways where or did you find
out anything that you didn't know in the Ukraine? No,
(31:27):
not really. I assume once we approached them about were
you molesting your child, all we got was he's slept
in our beds sometimes nothing ever happened, and that's just
the way it is. So I assumed they were going
to deny and there's nothing I could have attacked them with.
(31:50):
And that was pretty much the end of the story
as far as the Ukraine. Both sides traveled halfway across
the world without any explosive statements or concrete evidence that
the sex abuse allegations were true. But like everything else,
in this story, the biggest revelations were in the same
(32:11):
place they always were, inside the monastery at Holy Cross.
Stay with us, We'll be back after a break. Welcome
back to Sacred Scandal. I'm Paula Burrows and I'm Melanie Bartley.
(32:37):
After returning from Ukraine without a smoking gun, Edith Georgie's
defense team needed to find something in Miami that would
strengthen her insanity defense. To do that, her team had
to solidify the sexual abuse allegations against the priests of
Holy Cross. But with legal proceedings of capital cases usually
taking years before going to trial, both sides were worried
(32:59):
that they were up against the clock. They were concerned
that once the monastic candidate's visas expired, they would return
to Ukraine and be unable to appear as witnesses during
a trial. So a judge gave permission to the poen
of the monastic candidates and record videos of their testimony
for future use, so we already had part of the
(33:21):
trial in fact preserved. The month candidates had what's called
perpetuated testimony, so we actually preserved their testimony to be
used in the future for the defense. These testimonies were
led by Edith and Ray tasse If her co counsel
on the case, and these interviews would help inch the
(33:42):
defense towards getting the information that we're looking for. They
had been programmed to some degree, some more than others,
and so you know, they all had little bits and
pieces of information that added to the credibility of the
story that mackay had told and of the unique contexts
(34:04):
or environment that they were in in terms of isolation
and thought control and behavioral control. What were those bits
and pieces that you remember helping his case in that sense? Well,
I remember details about when they traveled and Petro staying
in the room with went. I thought that was highly unusual.
(34:29):
The traveling Ray mentioned is something Mike told us about
as well. Over the years, the priests would take the
monastic candidates on trips. They went to Disney World, North Carolina, Naples,
and Santa bell Island now in Santa Belle at the
Holiday Inn. You stayed in a room with one of
the other monastic candidates, correct, I think so noncons search.
(34:54):
This is basil coop being asked about those trips. A
bell father abbot stayed in a room and slept in
the same room with Petro. Correct. Yeah, And you know
on the trip to Santa Belle that Father Damion stayed
(35:15):
with and slept in the same room with Mikailo. Correct.
And you stayed in a room with one of the
other manastic candidates correct. Okay. Now to the trip to
North Carolina, you went again as a group. Correct. And
in North Carolina you stayed in cabins. Correct. Okay, come
(35:41):
in cabins. It was each individual little cabin where people stayed. Correct.
We're staying country all of us poll book in London,
I was in lond com Okay. Well, we know that
Father Damion again slept in the same room m with
(36:03):
with them. It's three bedrooms and Mona Captin, Somano and
Cavanams and the Marvel and Diane Sash. So the trips
to North Carolina, you stayed in a cabinet. There were
three bedrooms. Correct, Father Damien and Mikailo stayed in a
(36:25):
bedroom together and stopped in the same room. Correct. Father
Abbot stayed in the same room and slept in the
same room as the Petro. Correct. And you stayed in
a bedroom with one of the other men, asked candidates. Correct,
isn't it a fact in those bedrooms in that cabin
(36:48):
in North Carolina, and each bedroom there was only one bed. Yeah, okay.
So in North Carolina, father Abbott and Petro stupped in
the same bed correct. And in North Carolina Father Damia
and Makilo slupped in the same bed correct. Ray and
(37:15):
Edith also asked him and asked the candidates if they
heard someone walking around their house at night after curfew,
they remembered Mihilo told them he would be summoned to
father Damien's room at that time. Now, as we've seen
the pictures, you and three other candidates slept in the
bedroom with the blond beds right slap to the bedroom
(37:38):
with the four beds. Okay um, And that is very
near the hallway where the stairway is. It's around stairway, yes, okay.
And everyone had lights out of chat right to say
we're not supposed to get up, right, you can't go
(38:02):
You can get up to go to the bathroom. You
don't have to ask the permission for that, right, But
to go downstairs at the ten o'clock you need to
have permission for father has it? Yeah, okay? And if
you want to get that permission. You ask in advance
if it's okay for you to go downstairs after ten o'clock. Right, So,
(38:24):
as of ten o'clock everyone should be in their beds.
You four in the room with the four beds, and
Mikailo in his room a single room, and Pedro if
he's sleeping there in his room right now. Many times
during the night, you heard footsteps going up and down
(38:47):
that stairway, didn't you, And you never fothered find out
who that was or what was happening, did you? You
knew it was either Mikayl or Petrol. Right, there's none
of your for people got up and went downstairs. Yeah, yea,
(39:09):
one of you guys are getting out. So it happen
to be Mikailo or Petrol right the way Petro's room
had separate entrance through another steroids, didn't it. So hearing
these s footsteps going on the downstairs, and I'm talking
about before March, before this horrible thing happened in March,
(39:33):
you heard those footsteps many times, but you never found
out why. Most of these testimonies took place about eight
months after the murder at Holy Cross. By then, the
biggest silence of all was from Father Went and Father Damien. Interestingly,
(39:56):
Damien and Abbott moved off the campus and moved to
another location as soon as this whole case broke because
they didn't want to appear to be living with the
young candidates anymore. They had to separate themselves. Aside from
a few press releases sent out by a pr firm
and letters to Holy Cross parents, the priest said little
(40:19):
publicly about the murder or the allegations against them. Almost
a year and a half after Mike was arrested, Gale
and Edith were finally able to depost the priests. Father
Went and Father Damien each appeared separately with their lawyer present,
but on the advice of those lawyers, both priests refused
(40:40):
to answer almost every single question they were asked. They
resisted and pleaded the Fifth Amendment for hours. How did
you get in touch with the boys in Ukraine? Fifth Amendment?
Are you supporting them or their families in any way?
Fifth Amendment? All of those types of things, you know,
were questions that Ms Georgie was propound that really didn't
(41:00):
have a whole lot to do with the murder, But
in deposition in the discovery process allows her to build
a defense for her client through the questions of state witnesses.
So it wasn't an inappropriate questions, but it was just
became a lot more suspicious with the taking of the
Fifth Amendment. They went so far as to appeal the
(41:21):
lower court, the trial court ruling that they had to
answer the questions, and they set in motion and appeal
and then we had to go back to court and
the judge had to be present for the depositions, and
the judge had a rule on every question before they
answered the question. So instead of the deposition taking maybe
eight hours or over the course of two days, maybe
(41:44):
a course of over sixteen hours, the depositions took days,
over the course of maybe five seven days. So by
that point all the red flags were there and just
more and more skeptical and more and more concerned about
the safe of the kids there. From talking to the
(42:05):
investigators on this case, we knew some of the details
about these depositions, but because the sessions weren't recorded, we
never got to hear them. So this year we request
the transcripts of those conversations so we could get a
sense of what sorts of questions the priests were avoiding.
The documents are hundreds of pages long, and scrolling through
(42:26):
them feels like an infinite loop of the same responses
over and over again. So what we're looking at is
the document. We're looking at the document that is the
transcription of the entire questioning of Father Went. It is.
So the first one is Father Went deposition from November
(42:49):
two thousand and two. Yeah, and there is about two
hundred pages in which he basically refuses to answer of
the questions. It's really really bizarre. Um. Yeah, So so
over here on page fifty four, they basically asked him
(43:09):
why he decided to become a priest. Yeah, he said,
relying upon the advice of my counsel due to the
false allegations against me and my well founded fear that
these unjust investigations could lead to unfair charges and prosecution.
I am reluctantly forced to invoke privilege and refused to
answer based on my constitutional rights guaranteed by the first
(43:32):
fifth and fourteen Amendments. And it's crazy because I mean,
I understand that if they ask him things about the
sex abuse or anything like that, but it's like really basic,
really basic questions, like like I want to ask you
what is your current profession or occupation? I involved the
(43:53):
privilege on the ground stated previously what do you do
for a living? Same thing? And then the creeze see
as to one I think is do you know what
Holy Cross Monastery is? Fifth Amendment? What is Holy Cross Academy?
Fifth Amendment? Where do you presently live same, same, same like?
(44:15):
I mean, it's hundreds of pages. During these depositions with
Father Wynn and Father Damien, Prosecutor Gail Levin started to
notice something interesting happening between her side and the defense team.
I've known miss Georgian for many years. She's a fine lawyer,
but usually we're on opposite sides of the table. We
(44:38):
found ourselves going into the deposition room and just sort
of the way it was, we sat on the same
side of the table and the priests would sit on
the opposite side of the table. Usually my witnesses sit
on the same side. After the second day we did that,
I sort of looked at Miss Georgie and I said, Edith,
(44:59):
we're on the same side of the table this time,
and we sort of had a chuckle about that. And
I think at that point during those depositions we knew
that we had a very unique situation on our hands.
As the case went on, Mike's lawyer, Edith felt like
prosecutors were sitting on more than just her side of
(45:20):
the table, and that even Gay Levine was starting to
feel the same way about Mike's allegations. I absolutely believe
he was sexually abused, and I believe that the prosecutor
felt the same. In searching for those answers, both sides
would stumble across another ongoing investigation into Holy Cross. In
(45:44):
the years before the murder of Sister Michelle, the monastery's
own bishop reached out to the Vatican. The bishop was
trying to find out whether father went and Father Damien,
we're really priests at all. We'll go there next time
on Sacred's handle. Sacred Scandal is a production of Exile
(46:12):
Content Studio in partnership with I Heart Radio is Mike
la Podcast Network. Sacred Scandal was created and produced by
Melanie Bartley and me Paula Barros. Our senior producer is
Dennis Funk of Written in Air. The executive producers are
Rose Red and Nando Villa. Production mixing and sound design
(46:36):
by Helena de Grout, our production assistant is Imani Leonard.
The show is fact checked by Kimberly Winston. Original music
and final audio mixing comes from Patrick Hart, and special
thanks on this episode to Ariel Stevenson, Corey Chikowski, and
Travis Royd. If you'd like to reach out, email us
(47:00):
at hello at Sacred Scandal podcast dot com, and you
can follow us on Instagram at Sacred Scandal m
Host
Jasmine Romero
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!