Diocese initiates independent review of priest personnel files

Bishop John Stowe, OFM Conv., Bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Lexington, has entered into an agreement with Allison Connelly, Director of the Legal Clinic and H. Wendell Cherry, Professor of Law at the University of Kentucky, and Andrew Sparks, former Assistant US Attorney in the Eastern District of Kentucky, to conduct an independent review of the priest personnel files and files related to the sexual abuse of minors in the diocese from the time of its inception (1988) to the present.

During the course of their review, Attorneys Connelly and Sparks, will have complete access to the files of the diocese and are free to report any concerns to civil authorities.  At the conclusion of the review, they will issue a final report of their findings to Bishop Stowe who will publish their findings.  The review is scheduled to begin in early January 2019.

Allison Connelly joined the College of Law faculty in 1996.  Professor Connelly is the founding director of the U.K. Legal Clinic, where she also teaches Criminal Procedure and Criminal Trial Process.  She is considered an expert in these subjects.  Before joining the law school, Professor Connelly spent thirteen years as a state public defender providing direct representation to needy individuals at all levels of the criminal justice system, having risen through the ranks to become the only woman ever named as Kentucky’s Public Advocate, the head of Kentucky’s statewide public defender system. 
Andrew Sparks is an attorney with Dickinson Wright PLLC.  He was previously an adjunct professor of law at the University of Kentucky College of Law and had spent fifteen years as an Assistant United States Attorney in the Eastern District of Kentucky where he served as the chief of its white-collar crime division.