LaCrosse Priest Brought on Charges of Molestation

Visiting Catholic priest charged with sexual assault
Story By ANNE JUNGEN ajungen@lacrossetribune.com | Posted: Friday, February 12, 2010 12:00 am

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The Rev. Edmund Donkor-Baine, a visiting Catholic priest from Ghana, leaves a La Crosse County courtroom Thursday with attorney Cheryl Gill after he was charged with sexually assaulting a female parishioner. Erik Daily

A criminal charge filed Thursday accuse a visiting Catholic priest of sexually assaulting a female parishioner who had sought his advice.

The misdemeanor fourth-degree sexual assault case against the Rev. Edmund Donkor-Baine in La Crosse County Circuit Court comes after a Diocese of La Crosse investigation found no evidence to support the woman’s claim.

The 48-year-old woman approached Donkor-Baine in August after a Sunday Mass at a La Crosse parish, seeking an emergency counseling session on her divorce, according to a La Crosse police report.

Donkor-Baine, 47, instructed her to pick him up at the diocese center on a Thursday night.

The two drank smoothies at a downtown La Crosse restaurant and drove through Riverside Park at his request before returning to the diocese center. Donkor-Baine told her to continue driving when the woman said she did not feel relieved.

She parked the vehicle at Bank Drive and East Burr Oak Street in the town of Shelby, where Donkor-Baine attempted to kiss her, placed her hands on his pants over his genitals and grabbed her breasts through clothing, according to the report. He then asked sexually inappropriate questions when they returned to the diocese center.

The woman reported the incident to diocese administrator Monsignor Richard Gilles in September and met with diocesan attorney Jim Birnbaum, according to the report. It’s unclear why she met with Gilles instead of then-Bishop Jerome Listecki, now archbishop of the Milwaukee diocese.

“He (Gilles) told me that Bishop Listecki takes these things very seriously and that he would file a report and give it to him,” the woman testified in January before a state Senate committee in Madison. “Now, if I were the bishop, I would have had me sitting in a chair the next day.”

The diocese did investigate the report, Birnbaum said. Donkor-Baine, a Ghana resident who came to the U.S. for medical care, denied the offense.

“Sufficient evidence did not exist to confirm the woman’s story,” Birnbaum said. “There were no other like or similar allegations ever made.”

A Dec. 22 letter from Listecki to the woman stated he “cannot conclusively determine what happened.”

Still, Donkor-Baine was ordered not to have contact with the woman or St. James parish, where he led Mass. Listecki also recommended she avoid Franciscan Skemp Healthcare and Viterbo University, where Donkor-Baine provided ministry services and occasionally led Mass.

“Basically, it was Bishop Listecki’s blow-off letter to me,” the woman testified at the Madison hearing, which Listecki attended.

The diocese’s spotty communication with the woman and lack of reprimand against Donkor-Baine led her to report the assault to law enforcement in December, reports stated. She thought the diocese hoped the accusations would disappear, according to reports.

The diocese disagrees with the woman’s statements, Birnbaum said, but he declined to elaborate with the ongoing criminal investigation.

Peter Isely, the Midwest director for the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, said the woman approached the organization in November.

“I said, ‘Go to the DA. Go to the police,’” Isely said.

Donkor-Baine was arrested Jan. 25.

“I don’t know who to trust anymore,” the woman said in her testimony. “The people I thought I knew I guess I don’t really know anymore. And to have that rug ripped out from underneath you is unbelievable.”

tictac wrote:I am surprised he molested a woman I was expecting a boy or something. geez