Article published February 25, 2005
* NEW * Prosecutor won't appeal document release in case of slain nun
By ROBIN ERB
BLADE STAFF WRITER
Documents supporting two police searches of the Toledo Catholic Diocese in the murder investigation of Sister Margaret Ann Pahl most likely will be released Monday.
Common Pleas Court Judge Thomas Osowik ruled Thursday to keep the records sealed until Monday to give Lucas County prosecutors a chance to appeal his decision to make them public, and prosecutors yesterday decided not fight his decision to release them, said Dean Mandross, a senior assistant prosecutor.
That means search warrant affidavits, possibly outlining why police felt they needed a court order to search the downtown church office on September 15 and 17, may be released at 9 a.m. Monday.
Mr. Mandross said prosecutors originally fought The Blade’s request to make the records public because they felt the newspaper made a procedural error in asking for them. But whether an appeals court agreed with the prosecutors’ argument, the records most likely would have been released eventually, he said.
The Blade’s attorney, Fritz Byers, argued for the documents based on federal public records law.
Investigators searched the diocese offices last year as part of the investigation into the 24-year-old murder of Sister Margaret Ann Pahl who was strangled and stabbed in the Mercy Hospital chapel.
Detectives reopened the case in 2003 after they learned a 41-year-old woman, in unrelated allegations, claimed she had been sexually assaulted by several priests.
As part of her complaint, she accused Father Gerald Robinson of assaulting her once. Cold case detectives — recognizing Father Robinson’s name as a suspect from the 1980 homicide — decided to reopen the old murder case.
The priest’s lawyer, Alan Konop, has declined to comment on the allegation, citing a gag order in the murder case.
Contact Robin Erb at:robinerb@theblade.comor 419-724-6133
Read more in later editions of The Blade and toledoblade.com.
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