New
Secret Seton Hall Report Implicating New President Could Become Public
Seton Hall University has ignored calls by New Jersey’s governor, three state lawmakers and a member of Congress to release a report critical of its new president’s failure to report allegations in a major sexual abuse scandal more than five years ago.
Now it could be a judge who forces the storied Catholic university’s hand.
Avion Benjamin, a state Superior Court judge in Essex County, New Jersey, spent the last seven months overseeing the litigation of 450 claims of sexual abuse within the Archdiocese of Newark and at Seton Hall. Her predecessor in the case, which began in 2019, long ago ordered both institutions to disclose a mountain of evidence to lawyers for the alleged victims.
Yet even Benjamin said she was stunned to learn from reporting in POLITICO about the existence of the report, which includes accusations that Monsignor Joseph Reilly, now Seton Hall’s president, failed to properly report abuse claims. Seton Hall and the archdiocese disclosed other materials related to abuse, but not the report.
“This report is from 2019. They had to find out about it in 2025 in POLITICO,” she said of the alleged victims’ attorneys, according to a transcript of a hearing held on Feb. 12. “I mean, that just sounds crazy to me.”
She has ordered Seton Hall to produce the 2019 report and related documents to her by Feb. 19, but the school is fighting to keep it all private.
It is an unexpected turn in the separate, years-long abuse case involving the archdiocese and Seton Hall, some of which date back decades. Six of the claims are against Seton Hall.
If the judge ultimately rules that the investigative report should not be private, it could loosen Seton Hall’s grip on damning documents that named about a dozen priests, including its new president, Reilly. The resistance to the disclosure already raises broader questions about the university and the archdiocese's commitment to accountability and transparency in the wake of an abuse scandal that rose up to the Vatican.
The university did not respond to a message seeking comment on the court case. Maria Margiotta, a spokesperson for the archdiocese, said in a statement: “Cardinal [Joseph] Tobin has expressed a commitment to transparency,” and a third-party review he ordered last month “will be thorough, and supported by Seton Hall University and the Board of Regents to help restore trust and accountability.”
One of the many lawyers in the case said in court filings that the archdiocese — commonly called by its initials, RCAN — “inexplicably” withheld the report and related documents as part of the discovery process and didn’t know about it until POLITICO shed light on it for the first time. That reporting showed that Reilly knew of sexual abuse claims, did not properly report them and was recommended to step down from boards and his leadership position at the time as a seminary leader.
Despite those findings, and after Reilly took a year-long sabbatical, Seton Hall promoted Reilly to lead the university in July. It did so with the approval of the archdiocese.
Brad Rice, an attorney representing alleged victims, said lawyers were “surprised by the failure to disclose this investigation after the court ordered discovery from all the defendants regarding all prior instances of abuse and allegations relating to it.”
In 2018, the university hired a pair of law firms — Latham & Watkins and Gibbons P.C. — to investigate sexual abuse claims following credible allegations against Theodore McCarrick, the longtime archbishop of the Newark diocese and later the top Catholic leader in Washington, D.C.
That review found decades of sexual harassment and a “culture of fear and intimidation” under McCarrick, according to a summary published by the university.
A separate memo with key findings of the investigation was delivered to the Board of Regents, the university’s governing body. It detailed how Reilly, then rector and dean of the school’s Immaculate Conception Seminary, investigated a student complaint of sexual assault “in house” and did not report it or follow the school and federal Title IX policies and procedures. It also said Reilly dismissed a seminarian in 2012 who was an alleged victim of sexual abuse without investigating the incident or escalating the matter, a violation of university policy.
Reilly, who once served as priest secretary to McCarrick, also told investigators that he received information about a 2014 allegation of sexual harassment at St. Andrew’s Hall, a seminary at Seton Hall, but did not report it.
Seton Hall has said repeatedly it won’t release the report because it is confidential under attorney-client privilege. It took that position in court. “We are dealing with such an important privilege that is the foundation of the legal system,” Seton Hall attorney Patrick Papalia told the judge.
But another lawyer for alleged victims, John Baldante, said at the hearing that plaintiffs filed a motion to compel discovery at the start of the case years ago, and that “Seton Hall was under an obligation to produce” the 2019 report, according to the transcript. But he said in an interview it’s been an “endless fight” to get the university and the archdiocese to turn over documents.
“Throughout this litigation, the defendants have repeatedly violated court orders and engaged in behavior that reflects that they’re attempting to conceal information that they’ve been required to produce to us by the court. And this is all engineered to delay ultimate accountability,” Baldante said in an interview. “That level of disingenuous behavior is extremely frustrating, and all we can do is continue to fight forward and try to stand up for these survivors.”
Papalia, who did not return a message seeking comment, disputed in court that the report was subject to that discovery order and then filed a motion to keep it secret.
The archdiocese also argued during the hearing that it does not have the report and that Seton Hall “is not part of” the archdiocese. Seton Hall is a diocesan university within the Archdiocese of Newark, and the archbishop — currently Tobin — serves as president of the university’s Board of Regents and chair of the Board of Trustees.
Baldante told the judge that plaintiffs provided the court at the start of the litigation with an “extensive” report showing that, under canonical law, the archdiocese has “almost absolute power and control” over institutions like Seton Hall and “virtually all decisions have to be approved by the archbishop.” But one of the archdiocese’s lawyers argued to the judge that there is a distinction between canon law and civil law.
“There are various relationships and responsibilities and different things that are defined in canon law, and it’s church law,” said the lawyer, Christopher Westrick, “but it’s generally something that civil courts aren’t supposed to be getting involved in for First Amendment reasons.”
Rice, one of the lawyers of alleged victims, called Seton Hall’s argument claiming attorney-client privilege “just absurd.”
“For Seton Hall to now, years later, claim that it’s privileged — we don’t think that claim is legally supportable and we also believe it goes against the principle of openness with matters involving allegations of covered-up sex abuse,” he said in an interview.
New Jersey’s political leaders have taken a similar view. Gov. Phil Murphy said he was “deeply concerned” by POLITICO’s reporting and, along with three fellow Democrats in the Legislature, called for the public release of Seton Hall’s report.
Rep. Mikie Sherrill, who represents the district Seton Hall is located in, also said the report should be released. She followed up with a set of detailed questions to the university focused on Reilly’s knowledge of abuse claims, how he handled them and why the school made him president after he was recommended to not hold leadership at the university.
Sherrill gave the school a Feb. 7 deadline, according to a copy of her letter obtained by POLITICO, but her office said the school has not responded.
“I have been pushing Seton Hall to be transparent so we can get to the bottom of this issue and so far the response has been inadequate — it’s time for the university to publicly release its findings related to Monsignor Reilly,” Sherrill, who is also running for governor of New Jersey, said in a statement. “I’m encouraged by Cardinal Tobin’s investigation and will continue working to ensure Seton Hall’s wonderful student body and community have the strong leadership they deserve.”
Last month, Tobin hired a law firm to review the 2019 report, including how its findings relate to Reilly and “whether they were communicated to any and all appropriate personnel at the Archdiocese and Seton Hall University and Monsignor Reilly.” He said investigators “will have the full cooperation of the Board of Regents and Seton Hall University.”
Benjamin said at last month’s hearing she was “not really convinced” by the argument that Seton Hall is not part of the archdiocese. She deemed the 2019 report relevant to the case she’s overseeing, and another hearing is set for later this month.
“Ultimately the end game is the report needs to be turned over,” Benjamin said.
