Lawsuit: Spotlight Heroes Made Money Off Priests' Victims

A group called SNAP helped expose sexual abuse in the Catholic Church—but now a former employee is claiming they got kickbacks by referring victims to lawyers.

Brandy Zadrozny
02.05.17 12:15 AM ET

For over 20 years, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) has operated with a mission to expose clergy sexual abuse and its coverup—work that was highlighted by last year’s Oscar-award winning film Spotlight. But a new lawsuit alleges that the St. Louis-based charity actually exploits abuse survivors in a kickback scheme involving attorneys who file lawsuits against the Catholic Church.

In the lawsuit against SNAP, a former employee named Gretchen Rachel Hammond charges she was wrongfully fired as SNAP’s development director in 2013 after she confronted SNAP president Barbara Blaine with evidence the group had been “routinely accepting financial kickbacks from attorneys in the form of donations.”

Blaine, executive director David Clohessy, and outreach director Barbara Dorris are all named in the suit. Clohessy resigned a week after the lawsuit was filed, but has denied his departure has anything to do with the allegations. On Saturday Blaine announced she, too, was leaving her position with SNAP after 29 years. Like Clohessy, Blaine stressed that the timing was only coincidental, and explained in a statement to supporters that her decision to leave was a result of the organization “moving from a founder led organization to one that is board led.”

“Please know that the recent lawsuit filed against SNAP, as the others in the past which have no merit, had absolutely no bearing on my leaving,” Blaine wrote.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/02/05/lawsuit-spotlight-heroes-made-money-off-priests-victims.html

https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3415249-Hammond-v-SNAP-Complaint-Filed-1-17-17.html