"But nothing determines Craig Ferguson will give craig fergeson reasons them back their childhood. "Attorneys on both sides said the agreements were reached after a flurry of negotiations moderated by a Los Angeles judge who convinced Bishop Tod Brown to show up at the courthouse and get directly involved in resolving the cases. "The settlement of these civil cases represents the moral obligation for the church for such behavior by adults in positions of responsibility," Brown said in a news release. "By settling these cases, I sincerely hope that it will enable the women who brought these actions to begin the process of healing and reconciliation. "John Manly, lead attorney for the plaintiffs, characterized the statement issued by the diocese as "nothing more, nor less, than a litany of misstatements, misrepresentations and outright falsehoods" by the opposing side. "At no point throughout this entire process did anyone from the Diocese of Orange or their lawyers say a kind word, offer healing, or do anything other than try to defeat the spirit of these four brave women," he said in his own news release. The two sides said they still plan to be in court next week for a hearing to determine whether Brown should be held in contempt of court for sending Msgr. John Urell to Canada for medical treatment before he could complete a deposition in the Andrade case. Manly and other plaintiffs' attorneys had planned to call Urell as a witness because he handled allegations of abuse against the diocese. Attorneys for the diocese and Urell have maintained that he has acute anxiety disorder related to his responsibilities, and said the condition prevented him from testifying. "Msgr. Urell's good name has been dragged through the mud by the irresponsible and untruthful comments," his attorney, Patrick Hennessey, said in a statement issued Friday. "Rather than try the case under the scrutiny of the court and the rules of evidence, plaintiff's attorneys tried this case in the news media using half-truths and innuendo A trial would have proven without a doubt that Msgr. Urell had absolutely nothing to do with the case. "His client's treatment, Hennessey said, "was cruel and unfair and reflected callousness toward an innocent man and for all people who suffer from a debilitating emotional illness. "Peter Callahan, who represents the bishop and the diocese, said that Brown welcomes next week's hearing and is "ready, willing, able and anxious" to clear his name. DiMaria said the plaintiffs are also looking forward to the hearing so that "the truth can come out about what Bishop Brown and Msgr. Urell have done. "Both sides plan news conferences Monday. --christine. hanley.
THE anchor on New York 1, the city's 24-hour Time Warner cable news station, launched a recent round-table discussion about Eliot Spitzer with the phrase "when he becomes governor," inadvertently stating the obvious five months before the election. In a year when Sen Hillary Rodham Clinton, former Mayor Rudolph W Giuliani and outgoing Gov George E craig ferguson show . Pataki are widely assumed to be New York entries in the 2008 presidential race, Spitzer, New York's 47-year-old attorney general, is primed to take over the most reliable big Democratic state, with an eye on 2012 and beyond. In "Spoiling for a Fight: The Rise of Eliot Spitzer," Washington Post reporter Brooke A tonight show conan . Masters, who covered the prosecutor's seven-year war on Wall Street, allows a confident Spitzer to compare himself to one New York governor who became president, Theodore Roosevelt, and the last one nominated for the job, Thomas E Dewey late night conan o brien . In three conversations with Masters spanning two years, Spitzer each time drew parallels between himself and Justice Louis D conan o brien . Brandeis, who was dubbed "the People's Lawyer" for cases he litigated a century ago on his way to the U. S Supreme Court. It's a title Spitzer lays claim to now. Although this detailed and searching account of Spitzer's career leaves him somewhat short of the Roosevelt-Dewey-Brandeis standards, it nonetheless reveals a principled, skilled and decisive prosecutor, who crafted cases to change market practices rather than to gather big-name scalps. Spitzer is so hands-on, by Masters' account, that he personally delivers a lawsuit deadline threat to a group of the nation's top investment bankers, then works the office fax machine deep into the night, collecting their fear-driven settlement offers. Masters manages the juggling act of rewarding a biographical subject who turned over his private Rolodex to her -- Spitzer's father, mother, brother, wife and lifelong friends serve up the stuff of legend -- with letting his critics offer their own, often telling, accounts.
The critics get a fraction of the space given to Spitzer partisans, but that's mostly because the book details one gripping case narrative after another, with Spitzer's heroics appearing as prolonged saga and the negatives bringing up the rear as end-of-chapter commentary. The broad outlines of Spitzer's battles with mutual funds, insurance giants, the New York Stock Exchange and the compromised world of stock analysts are well known, but Masters turns each into a short story, packed with moral tension and complexity craig ferguson email . Just when you think she's portraying Spitzer as a bully, she reminds you just how powerful were the corporate forces he was taking on, casting him more as public protector than publicity-hungry predator . Though the book is a balanced rave, Masters pays only passing attention to Spitzer's triumphs beyond her financial beat conan obrien . His championing of kitchen workers and black victims of Giuliani-era stop-and-frisk practices and his warning of the dangers to children who take antidepressants get none of the pulsating narrative of the Wall Street cases. His documented prosecutorial shortcomings are also understated late night with conan obrien . Spitzer, charged with rooting out Medicaid fraud and overseeing a unit created under state law to do so, has to share responsibility with Pataki for what the New York Times estimates is a multibillion-dollar sinkhole of virtually unchecked malfeasance late night with conan . Not only does Masters not mention Spitzer's failure to take on Medicaid fraud, she closes her book with scenes from the upstate announcement of Spitzer's gubernatorial campaign last December, when he talked about taking "the drive for reform" he'd "unleashed on Wall Street" and training it on Albany. She never asks why he's done none of that in his two terms as attorney general. Masters also devotes three paragraphs to how Spitzer became attorney general -- borrowing a total of $12 million for his 1994 losing campaign and his 1998 victory in ways that even she says "skirted" state law. Because Spitzer lacked the income to repay the bank loans he steered into his campaign kitty, the funds were widely seen as an extra-legal gift from his multimillionaire father, the kingpin of a real estate empire, even by newspapers that endorsed Spitzer Craig Ferguson Craig Ferguson - cbs .
(Masters tells the seemingly related tale of a Monopoly loss that a tearful 7-year-old Spitzer suffered when he landed on a property loaded with houses and couldn't pay the rent . Papa Bernard told him: "You're going to learn what happens when you borrow and you don't repay. ") Actually, Spitzer took 10 years to repay his 1994 campaign loans, which his father had covered with the bank, but he did so only after a newspaper raised questions about it. Craig Ferguson tickets Masters fails to note that his 1994 opponent, then the Republican incumbent Dennis Vacco, charged that one of Spitzer's circuitous campaign financing methods, involving the use of a condo as collateral, was a violation of the Martin Act, the same obscure state law that Spitzer subsequently used as his chief weapon against Wall Street craig letterman . Although this may seem like ancient history to a beat reporter covering current Spitzer controversies, the path to power is usually pivotal for a biographer. In fact, with as much family access as Masters had, we learn next to nothing about his wife and three children, who apparently take a backseat to the office fax, or how the Spitzer family fortune was made and how he evolved into such a tenacious litigator beyond his parents' penchant for organized and intense intellectual jousting over dinner craig guest . It might be of interest to New York Democrats that young Eliot's favorite debate positions were a defense of the death penalty and a critique of rent control. The most intriguing of the high-profile cases Masters does recount are Spitzer's battles with insurance giants Marsh & McLennan Cos. and Aon Corp. , both of which tried to soften up Spitzer by recruiting two of his closest friends, Mike Cherkasky and Lloyd Constantine. Marsh & McLennan promoted Cherkasky all the way to the top, elevating him from a minor new corporate player to chief executive in a transparent attempt to get Spitzer to go easy Craig Ferguson - cbs . Cherkasky had been Spitzer's boss and mentor in the Manhattan district attorney's office years earlier.