Giuliani's loyalty to an accused priest

A grand jury accused Alan Placa of molestation and his diocese has suspended him, but the presidential candidate continues to employ his lifelong best friend as a consultant.

By Alex Koppelman and Joe Strupp

Read more: Republican Party, Presidential Race, Rudy Giuliani, New York, Politics, Catholicism, New York City, News, Child Abuse, 2008 election, Alex Koppelman

Salon image collage / AP photo

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani

June 22, 2007 | NEW YORK -- Anyone who has followed the career of Republican presidential contender Rudy Giuliani knows the value he places on personal loyalty. Loyalty is what inspired the former mayor of New York to make Bernard Kerik, once his personal driver, the commissioner of the New York Police Department, and then a partner in his consulting firm, and then to suggest him to President Bush as a potential head of the Department of Homeland Security.

After revelations about Kerik's personal history derailed his bid for the federal post, Giuliani demonstrated that there were limits to loyalty. He has distanced himself from Kerik, who resigned from Giuliani's firm and later pleaded guilty to corruption charges. Giuliani has not, however, sought to distance himself from another, much closer friend whose personal baggage is also inconvenient, and would send most would-be presidents running.

Giuliani employs his childhood friend Monsignor Alan Placa as a consultant at Giuliani Partners despite a 2003 Suffolk County, N.Y., grand jury report that accuses Placa of sexually abusing children, as well as helping cover up the sexual abuse of children by other priests. Placa, who was part of a three-person team that handled allegations of abuse by clergy for the Diocese of Rockville Centre, is referred to as Priest F in the grand jury report. The report summarizes the testimony of multiple alleged victims of Priest F, and then notes, "Ironically, Priest F would later become instrumental in the development of Diocesan policy in response to allegations of sexual abuse of children by priests."

Five years after he was suspended from his duties because of the abuse allegations, Placa is currently listed as "priest in residence" at St. Aloysius Church in Great Neck, N.Y., where close friend Brendan Riordan serves as pastor, and officially lives at the rectory there with Riordan. In addition, Placa co-owns a penthouse apartment in Manhattan with Riordan, the latest in a half-dozen properties the two men have owned in common at various times since the late 1980s.

Placa has worked for Giuliani Partners since 2002. As of June 2007, he remains on the payroll. "He is currently employed here," Giuliani spokeswoman Sunny Mindel confirmed to Salon, adding that Giuliani "believes Alan has been unjustly accused." Mindel declined to discuss what role Placa plays with the consulting firm, or how much he is paid. Says Richard Tollner, who testified before the grand jury that Placa had molested him, "[Giuliani] has to speak up for himself and explain himself. If he doesn't, people shouldn't vote for him." Adds Anne Barrett Doyle, co-director of BishopAccountability.org, which tracks suspected priest abuse, "I think Rudy Giuliani has to account for his friendship with a credibly accused child molester."

Placa himself did not return several calls from Salon.

Placa, now 62, has been friends with Giuliani since childhood. The boys attended Bishop Loughlin High School in Brooklyn together, where Giuliani, Placa and Peter Powers, later to become chief aide to Giuliani during his first term as mayor of New York City, were in an opera club together. Placa and Giuliani would sometimes double-date. "After we'd drop off the girls," Placa told the New York Times in 1997, "Rudy and I would spend hours in the car or walking down the sidewalks, debating ideas: religion, the problems of the world, what we wanted to be." Giuliani, Powers and Placa later attended Manhattan College together and were fraternity brothers at Phi Rho Pi.

After college, Placa attended seminary and became a Catholic priest. Ordained in May 1970, he was first assigned to St. Patrick's parish in Glen Cove, N.Y., from 1970 to 1974. He then transferred to St. Pius X Preparatory Seminary high school in Uniondale, N.Y., where he taught till 1978. He served as director of research and development for Catholic Charities from 1978 to 1986. He then went to work for the Diocese of Rockville Centre, which covers 134 parishes in the two suburban Long Island counties of Nassau and Suffolk and is the sixth largest diocese in the country. Placa ran healthcare services for the diocese, rising to the position of vice chancellor in 1988.

Though their career paths had diverged, Placa remained close to Giuliani, and was actively involved in many of the most important events of his friend's life. He was the best man at Giuliani's first marriage in 1968 to his second cousin, Regina Peruggi, then helped Giuliani get an annulment in 1982 -- over Regina's protests -- so he could marry his second wife, Donna Hanover. Placa officiated at the wedding of Hanover and Giuliani in 1984. In September 2002, while suspended by the diocese over the sexual abuse allegations and no longer permitted to perform priestly duties, Placa received special permission to officiate at the funeral of the former mayor's mother, Helen. He also officiated at the funeral of Giuliani's father and baptized both of Giuliani's children.

During Giuliani's political rise from U.S. attorney to mayor, when reporters wanted quotes from old friends they would often turn to Placa. A 1985 New York Times story noted that Placa stayed over at Giuliani's apartment as often as once a week, where the two men would "talk poetry, theology and politics deep into the night." The monsignor also knew Giuliani well enough to describe his relationship with his father, telling the Times, "A major theme with [Giuliani's] father was his hatred for organized crime."

In 2000, when Mayor Giuliani dropped out of the race for the open U.S. Senate seat now held by Hillary Clinton after finding out he had prostate cancer, a Times reporter went to Placa for insight. He told the paper that "it's been a dramatically challenging time."

When Time magazine named Giuliani its Person of the Year for 2001, Placa appeared again in that story, saying he had known Giuliani since he was 13 and that his cancer and Sept. 11 had "made him face his mortality b

But while Giuliani was being celebrated for his performance on Sept. 11, Alan Placa was about to lose his position of power. In addition to being a priest, Placa had received a law degree, and he first came to work for the diocese as its legal consultant. He was legal counsel to Bishop John McGann, and, starting in 1992, also a member of a three-person diocesan team charged with fielding allegations of sexual abuse by priests.

Next page: "Priest F was cautious, but relentless in his pursuit of victims"