Galveston Diocese responds to Catholic school lawsuit
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This morning, a new lawsuit was filed in Houston alleging that the Legion of Christ and a Spring Catholic School as players in an attempted land deal extortion.
The lawsuit is focused on the operators of a popular Legionnaires’ Catholic School in Spring, called Northwood’s Catholic School. The suit alleges a Catholic priest at the school attempted to extort a $94,000 payment to complete a land deal for school property. The Former President of the School is accused of threatening the daughter of the developer in the land deal. She was a student at the school.
The Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston made it clear Northwoods is not a school operated by them.
‘Northwood’s Catholic School is a private independent school and is not owned or operated by the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston; therefore, we were not involved in the disputed transaction and are unable to comment on the pending litigation.”
The lawsuit alleges officials of Northwood’s Catholic School approached Robert Pinard about purchasing 21 acres of land surrounding the school because of financial difficulties. Pinard worked on improving the real estate for months based on the word of the clergy, but alleges that in March of 2015 Father Daniel Massick added a sudden new condition to sign the legal papers, a $94,000 “donation.” The payment demand was captured in a text message.
The head of the Legionaires Church knew of the land deal and extortion attempt” says Attorney Cris Feldman of the Law Firm of Feldman and Feldman. “The fact that a member of the clergy would engage in this kind of conduct is shocking.”
Media Inquiries should be directed to Wayne Dolcefino of Dolcefino Consulting at 713-389-0810.
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