ST. LOUIS _ An advocacy group has apologized for "any false or inaccurate statements" they made against a St. Louis priest, the St. Louis Archdiocese revealed Monday, after a federal judge dismissed the priest's lawsuit claiming that he was falsely accused of sexual abuse and arrested after a botched police investigation.
The Rev. Xiu Hui "Joseph" Jiang had settled a lawsuit against the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests and the parents of an accuser in St. Louis, court filings in U.S. District Court in St. Louis last month showed.
On Monday, the St. Louis Archdiocese released an apology from SNAP and SNAP officials that said, in part, "The SNAP defendants have no personal knowledge as to the complaints against Fr. Joseph Jiang and acknowledge that all matters and claims against Fr. Jiang have either been dismissed or adjudicated in favor of Fr. Jiang."
Jiang's lawyers had wanted to add police and the City of St. Louis back into the case, saying that a recent deposition revealed that police violated "accepted practice and procedures" during the investigation. But U.S. District Judge Charles Shaw agreed with lawyers for the city counselor's office, saying too much time had passed.
On Nov. 21 Shaw ruled that Jiang had waited until 2 { years after the suit was filed and almost two years after a deadline for adding new parties. The suit was dismissed without prejudice, meaning Jiang could re-file it, and Jiang lawyer Neil Bruntrager told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch Monday that he would.
The lawsuit that would have been filed against police and the city says that a Jiang accuser was coached by his father into making a false accusation that Jiang had sexually abused the boy in a bathroom of St. Louis the King school, the elementary school at the Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis. The suit says police improperly planted a suggestion that Jiang performed oral sex on the boy.
That student had made an unfounded accusation before, the suit says. Police then failed to interview a teacher and do other investigation that could have disproven the student's claim, the suit says, because of Jiang's religion and his race.
Jiang came to the United States from China to pursue the priesthood and was sponsored by St. Louis Archbishop Robert Carlson. Jiang served in Michigan before coming to St. Louis with Carlson in 2009.
Jiang passed a polygraph test during which he denied abusing any minor, the suit says.
Jiang filed the original lawsuit against the boy's parents, SNAP, SNAP officials and others in 2015, less than two weeks after criminal charges filed against him were dropped.
The lawsuit says the false abuse allegations destroyed Jiang's life.
Last year, U.S. District Judge Carol Jackson ruled that SNAP and the accuser's parents failed to turn over evidence to Jiang. Because of that, she wrote that she would consider it established that SNAP defamed Jiang and conspired against him, and ordered SNAP to pay $25,100 toward Jiang's legal fees.
Jiang was arrested in an unrelated case in Lincoln County in which he was accused of molesting a 16-year-old girl in 2012, but those charges were dropped in 2013.
His accuser sued but lost when a jury found in favor of Jiang and the archdiocese and a judge ordered the accuser to pay $29,200 in legal expenses to Jiang and $19,316 to the St. Louis Archdiocese.
