THE WHOLE STORY

Darker and More Sinister Motives?

ut there are more ways, and much more serious ones, to turn aside opposition than merely belching out impenetrable clouds of misimpressions and false leads.

Groups such as crime gangs, invading forces, or minority factions striving for political power have a number of well-documented methods of terrorizing and intimidating those who oppose them. One of these methods is to choose and destroy a sacrificial scapegoat as an example to everyone else of what could happen to them if they don't cooperate with the demands being made. The choice of this scapegoat victim, however, must be made very carefully. The scapegoat must have the following characteristics:

• He/she cannot be a nonentity picked at random, but must have considerable power and prestige from the point of view of his/her community;
• at the same time, he/she must be almost entirely powerless in an absolute sense, so that the intimidators can destroy him/her with virtually no fear of consequences;
• and the victim must have some characteristic that will limit widespread sympathy or outrage in the world at large.

From the point of view of the Samaritans/FRNB, Sister Plante was a perfect scapegoat. She held a high position professionally. She has a doctorate degree from a highly respected university. Her employment record of four decades is spotless, and she has earned the lasting respect and affection of her students and their families. Moreover, she is a member of a religious order and has vowed herself to a life of service to humanity. Of all the figures in this story that the Samaritans/FRNB could have attacked, Sister Plante would seem to be the most unimpeachable. But she was also the easiest mark. Under a vow of obedience, and completely answerable to the Diocesan hierarchy, she had no claim to due process. Under a vow of poverty, Sister Plante cannot own personal property or money (her salary is turned over to the order). In every important respect, despite her professional standing, Sister Plante was completely powerless. The final quality that made Sister Plante a perfect scapegoat was her status as a Sister of Mercy. It is a sad fact that a large majority of people in the United States have strong negative stereotypes and prejudices against nuns. The Samaritans/FRNB were cynically aware that any attempt Sister Plante made to resist being fired or contest their false accusations would be treated as a joke by great numbers of people.

By successfully bringing down Sister Plante, the Samaritans/FRNB were able to communicate an unequivocal message to everyone else involved in the conflict: "If we can destroy Sister Plante, we can destroy anybody, so back off." It's not necessary to infer this message from the situation--Samaritans/FRNB supporters stated it explicitly. As soon as Sister Plante was placed on involuntary leave, Susan Lyman began receiving threatening mail with statements like, "Sister Plante has now suffered the consequences", "remember what happened to Sister" and telling her that not only she personally, but the entire American Suicide Foundation would suffer similarly.

It's obvious that Sister Plante was targeted by the Samaritans/FRNB as an example. Not one of the individuals who participated in her downfall has ever expressed a single word of remorse, not even conditionally. None of these individuals, clearly, has lost a moment's sleep over Sister Plante's humiliation. This raises two questions for any objective observer:

What kind of people would be capable of doing something so cold and ruthless as to destroy another human being's life and career with deliberate lies?

What was at stake for these individuals that they would go to such an extreme to divert attention? What did they have to hide?

The Samaritans/FRNB gained another strong advantage when they destroyed Sister Plante. Extortionists, kidnappers and other intimidators often rely on the fact that good people will make almost any concession to protect and defend the innocent. This is the basis for such cowardly crimes as the taking of hostages, intimidating parents by threatening their children, and so on. As soon as Sister Plante was forced to resign, many of those who had been involved in the "Ross Saga" turned all their energies and resources toward helping Sister Plante. As the Samaritans/FRNB smirked with triumph, the Ross supporters were appalled to realize that they had condemned a woman who was blameless of any wrongdoing to professional and personal ruin by asking her to be a neutral mediator. (Only those who completely lack any vestige of integrity or decency, of course, fail to respect the sanctity of the role of neutral mediator.) Any further efforts that might have been made to resolve the Ross/Samaritans/FRNB impasse were now permanently diverted to restoring Sister Plante's reputation.

Scorched Earth Tactics

This story contains even more evidence, however, that the Samaritans/FRNB were not simply trying to bring a confusing episode to a close. The nature of their protestations, and the overkill of their response, strongly suggests that there was much more going on than they were willing to admit.

First, consider the Samaritans/FRNB's complaint that the "praise campaign" was somehow sinister or threatening. No one who has reported on this whole case has ever commented on the absolute illogic of the Samaritans/FRNB's attitude, or even asked them to explain exactly what underhanded motives they believed might be behind the campaign. A "fraudulent praise campaign"? Fraudulent, in what way, and to what end? It's almost an oxymoron. Why on earth would anybody go to all the time and trouble to manufacture a "fraudulent" praise campaign? A fraudulent smear campaign, yes--that would be all too believable. But a fraudulent praise campaign? Including thousands of dollars of cash contributions? If the Samaritans/FRNB's name was being used in a fundraising scam, as the Samaritans/FRNB claimed on "Chronicle" that they suspected, why on earth would con artists running such a scam deliberately attract the attention of legislators, Cardinal Law, President Clinton and the Pope by commissioning commendations from them? Con-artists, like stage magicians, do everything possible to distract attention until they can get away with the loot.

I'd like to ask you, the reader of this website, to apply your imagination, intelligence, and common sense for a moment. Imagine that you are the Director of a non-profit human services agency that is almost entirely dependent upon donations for its budget. Your hotline staff is all-volunteer, and in order to attract volunteers, you need good publicity, recognition by the leaders of your society, and a good reputation. It would be self-destructive to the point of insanity for you to return donations to private citizens, and denounce a good public relations campaign...unless. What might be the circumstances in which a non-profit agency would violently rebuff a "praise campaign" with all the attention that it might attract? What might you fear would come out if all sorts of legislators suddenly were made much more aware of your agency than they previously had been? What might you be worried about if a sudden large influx of donations caused your account books to be worth examining? What possible scenarios do your own common sense and experience suggest to you?

Here is another situation for you, the reader of this website, to consider. Imagine that you are the chief executive officer of a large non-profit institution, such as the Fall River Diocese. You are sitting in your office one July day, and you hear a low rumbling noise out in the hallway. Stampeding into your office comes a herd of high-powered "representatives" for a small, local human services agency: the Executive Director, the Assistant Director, the current President of the Board, the past President of the Board, three attorneys, an official from the county Sheriff's office and a Congressional aide! You have never seen or heard from any of these people before, so it's not as though they'd contacted you in lesser numbers and received an unsatisfactory response. All of them, it turns out, are here to complain to you about one single person--an individual who is not even under your direct authority. What has this person done? With all these big guns flattening the nap of your office carpet, you logically expect nothing less than some heinous crime: multiple child molestation, felony murder, or at least, larceny in excess of the national debt. You might also logically expect some evidence to be presented in proof of this individual's wrong-doing.

Instead, you hear only an eight hundred decibel whine that this single individual is "harassing" all of these powerful people, and that she supposedly wrote a book of poems that they find offensive. Not a single shred of hard evidence in support of the complaints is offered.

If you are a reasonable person, you might wonder why this human services agency is so threatened, and rendered so desperate, by the alleged actions of a single neutral mediator, that they would perform the equivalent of killing a mosquito with a howitzer. What is at stake for them that they would go to such an extreme effort to intimidate someone of your standing? By bringing three lawyers with them and stating that they will file a lawsuit against you, they're making it clear that they're fighting a life and death battle. But they never make it clear why. What do they have to hide that they fear this individual and her mediation, even inadvertently, might expose?

What circumstances do your common sense and experience suggest the agency might be hiding?

Frightened Innocents or Guilty Consciences?

When Sister Plante was locked out of her office on August 15, 1994, she was told by her superiors that the Samaritans/FRNB had complained that she was keeping a file on them and investigating their agency's business. While this was not the case, suppose it had been true? What agency that was being operated in an ethical, responsible manner would have anything worth investigating or keeping a file about? Why should the Samaritans/FRNB have worried, or cared, if someone was investigating them? Non-profit corporations are public entities, anyway: their bylaws, business and financial books are a matter of public record. An agency that goes berserk at the thought that someone is examining its business is not deserving of the public trust. What were the Samaritans/FRNB hiding?

Throughout the past five years, the Samaritans/FRNB have worked very hard (especially when they could get on television) to present themselves as a frightened, confused, victimized group of people. But if the Samaritans/FRNB really thought they were being used for some kind of hoax or fund-raising scam, why did they never report their suspicions to the police? To the FBI? To the Division of Public Charities? To the Office of the District Attorney? Why didn't the Samaritans/FRNB launch an investigation of the praise campaign? At no time did the Samaritans/FRNB ever report the praise campaign to any authority or agency for possibly swindling donors or engaging in some kind of money-laundering scheme. If that's really what the Samaritans/FRNB suspected, they had a moral obligation to the supposed victims, and to other Samaritans chapters and other charities who might be used in such a way, to report the supposed hoax to every relevant authority. Furthermore, if they believed they were innocent victims or shills in a shady scheme, why weren't they eager to testify in court about their concerns?

The Samaritans/FRNB based much of their suspicion of the praise campaign on their doubts about the authenticity of the letters of commendation. They expressed these doubts to Sister Plante, the praise campaign organizers, the newspapers, and "Chronicle". But at no time did anyone from the Samaritans/FRNB ever express their doubts to the most logical parties: the alleged writers of the letters! If you, the reader of this website, received a personal letter purporting to be from a legislator, and you doubted it was authentic, what would you do? You would pick up the phone and call the legislator's office to find out if he had sent you any such letter. But the Samaritans/FRNB instead went only to the very people who they suspected of forging the letters in the first place. No legislator or politician ever heard directly from the Samaritans/FRNB asking to verify that the commendation was authentic. Why not?

There's no doubt that the Samaritans/FRNB acted like people who felt threatened. But they didn't act frightened. They acted, from the first moment, and in every possible way, like people who are guilty.

The Samaritans/FRNB are undeniably guilty of confiscating checks and retaining them uncashed, refusing to return the checks despite repeated requests to do so. Ellie Leite stated publicly that she was keeping the checks "under my desk blotter" and during the June 15, 1994 confrontation, ordered Susan Lyman not to ask her about these checks or any other missing funds donated to the organization and unaccounted for. The Samaritans/FRNB claimed that they did not want to return the checks to Mrs. Ross because they did not believe she existed. But if the Samaritans/FRNB genuinely believed, as they claimed, that the checks represented money fraudulently obtained or part of a scam, then they had absolutely no right to keep it. The checks should have been turned over to the office of the District Attorney, the Fall River police, or some other investigative authority, to be held until their origin could be cleared. It was neither legal nor ethical for the Samaritans/FRNB to hold the checks. Again, apply your own common sense to the issue. If you, the reader of this website, discover a bag of cash on the street, should you keep it? As we all are taught in grade school, both legally and ethically, you are required to turn questionable money in to the authorities. If the money is evidence in a crime, and you withhold it, you could be held liable for complicity in that crime. The Samaritans/FRNB were never held accountable by anyone for their refusal to turn over this important evidence of an alleged crime to the appropriate authorities. Just as the Samaritans/FRNB accused Sister Plante and the praise campaign organizers of "fraud" but never officially reported those allegations to the authorities, the Samaritans/FRNB claimed that Mrs. Ross' checks were possible evidence of "fraud" and "criminal activity" and yet hid them under Mrs. Leite's office blotter!

These are not the only unanswered questions about Sister Plante and the Ross Saga, by far. Why did an attorney of Robert George's experience, reputation and stature perform such an abysmally incompetent and sloppy job representing Sister Plante that he was publicly criticized by Judge Volterra and Attorney James Franchek, and is now liable in a suit for legal malpractice? Why did the Samaritans/FRNB accept a plaque from the Rosses in early 1992 and then rebuff the praise campaign only a year later? Why did Congressman Blute fail to respond to any of the letters sent to him by Sister Plante, or to return telephone calls made to him by Ed Rice?

Keeping the Core Issue at the Center

These mysteries may never be solved. But one fact is clear: Sister Plante has unjustly borne all of the ugly consequences of the Ross/Samaritans/FRNB dispute. She deserves, at the least, a full apology from her former superiors in the Fall River Diocese, and an apology and unqualified acknowledgement from the Samaritans/FRNB that she was used by them as a scapegoat in their effort to stop the Rosses from pressuring them to accept the praise campaign. Sister Plante could not keep a large financial settlement due to her vow of poverty, and getting such a settlement is not her goal. She wishes only to restore her reputation and the professional standing she earned in her four decades of dedicated work as an educator. She wishes to see that the real story is publicized, instead of all the nonsense, paranoia and deliberate falsehood that has been broadcast for the past five years. If you agree that Sister Plante fell afoul of a convoluted and shady situation and was punished for the sins of others, then she needs your help. The intimidators are right about one thing: if it could happen to Sister Plante, it could happen to you. Tactics such as these must not be allowed to succeed in a free and democratic society. We need to see the truth told at last.

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