How Tod Brown Quashed a Sex-Abuse Lawsuit While Bishop of Boise

Meunier, in an undated photo

​In December 1993, just around the time then-Diocese of Boise, now-Diocese of Orange Bishop Tod Brown learned that one of his priests had repeatedly molested a boy nearly 20 years earlier, two brothers filed a lawsuit against the Boise diocese for molestations they suffered under the grubby hands of Luke Meunier during the early 1970s. At the time of the abuse, Meunier had already seen a psychologist for his pedophilia, and confidential church records obtained by the Weekly showed Boise diocese officials already had caught Meunier molesting boys and knew he had previously molested in other dioceses as well. He was so bad that then-Bishop Sylvester Treinen (Brownie's predecessor) sent Meunier off to Tucson, where he would terrorize children for another year before finally getting arrested.

Didn't matter to Brownie that the brothers suffered horribly in the Diocese of Boise--in fact, he legally told the brothers they could stuff their lawsuit up their tucchus the way Meunier did to them.


Brownie's legal defense team crafted a clever argument to counter the brothers' lawsuit--since Meunier wasn't canonically part of the Boise diocese (the pedo-priest was ordained to a Canadian diocese), Boise had no responsibility for the pedo-priest; therefore, the brothers couldn't sue Brownie. "The bishop from the Diocese of incardination of a priest has the responsibility for that priest," argued Brownie's Boise defense team, and he won--the case of the brothers was dismissed.

Remember this argument for tomorrow, when we disclose a Boise blockbuster--in the meanwhile, heckuva job, Brownie!