LET'S SEE IF APURON AND THE NEOCATS TRY IT AGAIN

By Tim Rohr

The Guam Daily Post reported today that Apuron's personal attorney, Jacqueline Taitano Terlaje, has filed a motion to dismiss the remaining civil suit against Apuron.

Per the Post: "The case, first filed in the federal court in 2019, alleged Apuron sexually assaulted a student when he was a minor in the 1990s." And also: "The stipulation indicates plaintiffs’s attorney Charles McDonald had agreed for the case to be dismissed with prejudice."

There were a total of 10 cases filed against Apuron, personally, each alleging sexual assault. Last May, upon both parties' agreement, nine of them were dismissed with prejudice, meaning the decision to dismiss would be final, and the same claim(s) can not be made again. 

As readers may remember, the dismissals in May provided an occasion for Apuron to put on a little song-and-dance via video, claiming the dismissals proved his innocence. The Post article recalls Apuon's "song and dance" as follows:

“Over the past decade, I have been unjustly condemned by the media and in the public opinion because of certain false accusations made against me. In silence, I have accepted this injustice out of love for Jesus Christ, praying for those who were doing evil against me,” said Apuron who further called the dismissals “evidence” of his innocence.

Fortunately, in this article, the Post also recalls the backlash from the new archbishop, which, my sources tell me, involved Vatican input:

In response to those initial dismissals and Apuron’s message, Archbishop Ryan Jimenez, following consultation with the diocese’s legal counsel, stated the dismissals did not “operate as an adjudication about the merits of a particular case, but is a mechanism that allows parties to a particular civil case to mutually agree to end that legal matter."

Jimenez additionally highlighted Apuron was found guilty of committing abuse against minors.

"That determination was made following a canonical investigation and penal trial conducted by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of Faith in Rome. The determination led to the former bishop losing his rank and duties as the leader of the Catholic Church on Guam, as well as perpetual prohibition preventing him from returning to Guam or presenting himself with the insignia attached to the rank of bishop," Jimenez wrote.

"Nothing about that determination has changed," Jimenez added.

Apuron's song-and-dance last May was obviously choreographed by his handlers, the usual suspects. While Archbishop Jimenez handled it well, especially by first seeking counsel from the right authorities, if nothing else, the brazenness of Apuron's performance should be an absolute warning to Jimenez of just how committed Apuron's Neocat handlers are to thwarting every authority, including his.

Let's see if Apuron and the Neocats try it again.