HEARINGPANEL DisciplinaryBoard
EpiscopalChurchin Connecticut
The Episcopal Church in Connecticut
ECCTTitle IV Matter 2021-1
The EpiscopalChurch in Connecticut ("ECCT"),through counsel, submits this Reply to Respondent's Opposition to ECCT's Motion to Redact Names and Identifying Information (the "Motion"). As more fully set forth below, the requested redactions are necessary to protect Injured Persons. ECCT'sMotion should be granted.
In support of its Motion, ECCTmakes essentially two claims. First ECCT submits that in his supplemental memorandum in support of his motion to dismiss (the "Memorandum"), Respondent attaches as a single exhibit four hundred seventy-five (475) pages of emails. Almost four hundred of those pages are not even cited or referred to by Respondent in the body of his Memorandum. Clearly then, even Respondent cannot claim that the vast majority of the emails he attaches as an exhibit to his Memorandum are relevant to the arguments he makes in support of his motion to dismiss. One can only conclude that Respondent attaches those irrelevant documents for the express and only purpose of having them published on the Diocesan website and thus available to the public generally.
V.
The Reverend Amjad Samuel, Respondent
The Episcopal Church in Connecticut's Reply to Respondent's Opposition to Motion to Redact Names and Identifying Information
It is difficult not to conclude that Respondent's aim is not to provide evidentiary support for his motion to dismiss but instead to subject the authors and recipients of those emails and documents to potential public harassment and ridicule.
The intent of Canon IV.13.3's requirement that documents filed with or issued by the Hearing Panel be made public cannot mean that a party can attach documents to a pleading not because they are relevant to the questions at issue but simply because the party wants them made public. To permit a party to do so rewards blatant bad faith.
Second, ECCTsubmits that the identities of various individuals who, for the most part are merely copied on various communications and who neither acknowledge receipt of those communications nor respond to those communications in any substantive way, should be protected from public disclosure.
The emails cited by Respondent and discussed in his Memorandum address a number of isolated events: The initial complaints against the Respondent received by ECCTin February 2021 and the preparation of the Intake Report from those complaints. The preparation for the Bishop's February 2021 meeting with Respondent to advise him of the nature of the complaints ECCThad received including the drafting of a summary of the complaints to be used by the Bishop at that meeting. The efforts ECCTmade at the request of the Church Attorney to delay the eviction of the Christian Counseling Center to give the Church Attorney time to investigate a complaint that the eviction was proceeding because of the bad faith of the Respondent and his manipulation of the Vestry. The concerns expressed by some Complainants and witnesses that speaking with the Church Attorney may subject them to civil claims by Respondent. The Reference Panel's referral of the matter to the Bishop for a possible Accord and the Bishop's meeting with Respondent to discuss the terms of a proposed Accord. The decision by the Reference Panel, given the absence of an agreed to Accord and the know position of the parties, whether to refer the matter directly to a Hearing Panel or first to a
Conference Panel. And the treatment of letters of support for Respondent from several parishioners at a parish had served at nine years earlier.
Significantly, none of the material cited by Respondent in support of his motion to dismiss is evidence that would tend to prove or disprove the allegations against him. Respondent makes no claim that ECCTdid not receive complaints from the named and anonymous Complainants. The entire discussion of ECCT'sFebruary 2021 actions as contained in the cited emails demonstrates nothing more than an attempt to accurately reduce the Intake Officer's verbal communications with the Complainants to writing in the form of an Intake Report.
The "summary" of the allegations against Respondent detailed in the lengthy Intake Report referenced in Respondent's Memorandum was prepared to assist the Bishop in his initial meeting with Respondent to advise Respondent of the complaints being made against him. The preparation of that "summary" is hardly evidence of bias against Respondent or manipulation of the facts as relayed to ECCT and does not tend to prove or disprove the allegations made against Respondent by the Complainants.
The complaints that ECCTreceived alleged that Respondent was maliciously and impermissibly interfering with the Christian Counseling Center's relationship with St. Paul's and that the eviction of the Center was imminent. That being the case, ECCT'srequest, made at the behest of the Church Attorney, that St. Paul's briefly delay the eviction to give the Church Attorney time to thoroughly investigate those claims is hardly evidence of bias against Respondent and again is not relevant to the allegations made against Respondent or his defenses to those allegations.
Similarly, there was nothing improper about communications intended to assure the Complainants and others that speaking truthfully with the Church Attorney would not subject them to civil claims by Respondent and that such behavior by Respondent would be seen by ECCTas retaliation by Respondent. This is particularly true where, as here, the very complaints received by ECCTin February
2021 detailed retaliatory behavior by Respondent toward those individuals who had made complaints about Respondent to ECCTseveral years earlier.
The Canons contemplate and specifically authorize referral of a matter by the Reference Panel to the Bishop for possible Accord. The emails concerning the referral made here and the Bishop's meeting with Respondent to propose an Accord took place in the normal course of these Title IV proceedings. Likewise, there is nothing improper about the emails discussing whether, following the failure to reach an Accord, this case should be referred directly to a Hearing Panel as authorized by the Canons or should be referred initially to a Conference Panel. Those discussions do not evidence bias. They do evidence a concern that referral to a Conference Panel was both futile and where, as here, the Respondent categorically denies committing any Offense, referral to a Conference Panel will result only in delaying the ultimate resolution of this matter.
Finally, emails commenting on the probative value of letters of support for Respondent received from parishioners he led nine years earlier is not evidence of bias.
Canon IV.13.3(b) gives the Hearing Panel discretion to require redaction of documents to protect any Injured Person or allegedly Injured Person. An Injured Person is "a person, group or Community who has been, is or may be affected by an Offense". The individuals and identifying information ECCTseeks to redact had no involvement in the receipt of the complaints received by ECCT or the investigation of those complaints. They are identified by Respondent in his pleadings to subject them to public disclosure. Moreover, nothing in the subject matter of the emails attached by respondent as an exhibit to his Memorandum are relevant to the subject at issue in this case; that is, they do not tend to prove or disprove the allegations against Respondent or his defenses to those allegations. The emails attached as an exhibit for the purpose of disseminating to the public Respondent's grand conspiracy theories which have no basis in fact and the individuals identified in those emails are unquestionably Injured Personswithin the meaning of the Canons.
Respondent is charged with canonical violations not because ECCT manufactured evidence against him but because numerous individuals over several years complained to ECCTabout Respondents behavior and suffered at his hand for doing so. ECCT'sMotion to Redact should be allowed.
Respectfu Ily,
Church Attorney