Legal Troubles Pile Up For Seton Hall As It Tries To Move On From Abuse Scandal

Seton Hall University’s leadership tried to move on from the negative attention on its new president after an independent investigation released in July concluded he did nothing wrong in responding to a sexual abuse allegation when he held a prior position.

But in a matter of days last week, things got worse for the esteemed Catholic school.

A new lawsuit adds fresh details and allegations against the new president, Monsignor Joseph Reilly, claiming he had a former seminarian tracked by a private investigator and tried to delay his advancement in the church. That came shortly after a high-ranking state senator asked New Jersey’s attorney general to investigate how Reilly and the university handled a sexual abuse allegation by that very seminarian more than a decade ago.

And between those two actions, Reilly’s predecessor refiled a whistleblower lawsuit against the school claiming that he faced retaliation before resigning as president.

Taken together, they represent new legal headaches for a school that is already mired in a yearslong clergy abuse case within the Archdiocese of Newark and faces a $1 million lawsuit over hazing allegations in its baseball program. The developments come about 18 months after POLITICO first reported that Reilly had been accused of mishandling the abuse case.

“The pattern we are seeing — multiple lawsuits, documented Title IX failures, retaliation against seminarians, and the ongoing effort to keep the Latham & Watkins report sealed — is not a series of isolated incidents,” said Mark Crawford, New Jersey director for the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP. “It reflects a systemic breakdown in accountability and a culture that has repeatedly protected institutions over individuals.”

The Latham & Watkins report Crawford referenced is at the heart of many of Seton Hall’s problems. In 2018, the university hired the global law firm to investigate claims of sexual harassment and abuse by then-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the longtime archbishop of Newark and Washington, D.C.

That investigation implicated Reilly — who was not accused of abuse himself — and acknowledged violations of federal Title IX law years earlier. But the university did not release the full review, just a summary.

In 2024, POLITICO reported that investigators found that Reilly, a former aide to McCarrick, did not properly report a sexual abuse allegation against a seminarian in 2012, when he was the dean and rector of Seton Hall’s Immaculate Conception Seminary. A separate law firm working with a university task force recommended, pursuant to a responsive action plan the school’s governing body adopted, Reilly be removed from governing boards and leadership. (Investigators hired by the university said last month, without explanation, that those recommendations were inaccurate.)

But after a sabbatical, Reilly was promoted to the top position leading the university. The revelation that he had been implicated in the Latham & Watkins investigation drew backlash from advocates and New Jersey political leaders, including Sen. Joe Vitale — who wants a state inquiry — now-Gov. Mikie Sherrill and her predecessor, Phil Murphy.

Cardinal Joseph Tobin, the archbishop of Newark, hired the law firm Ropes & Gray to look into that 2019 investigation. The firm released a report in July that left some key questions unanswered but acknowledged that Reilly did not report the alleged assault on the seminarian to the school’s Title IX office as required. It was “unintentional given that he had not been trained on the applicable policy,” the report said.

Tobin and Board of Regents Chair Hank D’Alessandro reaffirmed their support for Reilly when the report was released and strongly suggested Reilly’s troubles were behind him.

“The Board of Regents remains fully confident in Monsignor Reilly’s values, abilities, and deep-rooted dedication to leading this University,” D’Alessandro said in a statement at the time. “We are pleased to be moving forward under his leadership.”

Now, Reilly’s leadership is again being called into question.

On. Aug. 11, Vitale, a Democrat who chairs his chamber’s health committee, sent a letter to New Jersey’s attorney general asking the office to investigate the university. He argued that the 2019 Latham & Watkins report and this year's Ropes & Gray report reached “fundamentally different conclusions,” so an independent review is the only way to “provide the confidence necessary to restore public trust.”

The next day, former Seton Hall President Joseph Nyre refiled a whistleblower lawsuit that had been dismissed earlier this year. Nyre, who resigned in 2023 before his contract expired, claims he faced discrimination and retaliation when he raised concerns about alleged misconduct in the school’s upper ranks.

Two days after that, on Aug. 14, the seminarian who told Reilly he had been sexually assaulted in 2012 filed a lawsuit against Reilly, Seton Hall and Immaculate Conception Seminary. The seminarian, who was only identified in the suit by his initials but went on to become a priest in Brooklyn, New York, claimed he faced retaliation after confiding to Reilly that he had been sexually assaulted by a fellow seminarian.

Much of the lawsuit reiterates findings included in the Ropes & Gray report, but it also includes new allegations about Reilly’s response. It claims that Reilly acknowledged to the seminarian who was allegedly assaulted that he had a private investigator follow him and that Reilly tried to delay his ordination into the clergy, telling him he was not sufficiently a “man of community.”

The seminarian had engaged in a consensual relationship with a woman who was not affiliated with the school, which he acknowledged was “inconsistent with the obligation of chastity,” according to the suit. Before he disclosed that relationship, the suit said, the seminary had the private investigator following him, tracking his vehicle to an apartment building in Hoboken and documenting overnight absences from the seminary. This “extreme surveillance” happened against the backdrop of the “hostility” he faced after making the abuse allegation, the suit said.

A lawyer for the alleged victim did not respond to a request for comment. Seton Hall declined to comment on the lawsuits, saying only that it “remains focused on its educational mission.”

Armen McOmber, an attorney for Nyre, said the former seminarian’s claims must be evaluated on their own evidence and merits, “but the issues they raise overlap with the institutional accountability, governance, compliance, and retaliation concerns Dr. Nyre alleges he confronted as President.”

“These independent developments reinforce the importance of transparency and a full examination of how Seton Hall handled reports of misconduct, whether its required procedures were followed, whether the applicable laws, rules, and regulations were followed, and how those who raised concerns were treated,” McOmber said in a statement.