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Jan. 11 (UPI) -- A sexual assault case against one of the most prominent Catholic leaders in the United States was suspended Wednesday on the grounds he was unfit to stand trial. A Wisconsin court found former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, 93, incompetent to stand trial after he was diagnosed with dementia.
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Wisconsin county Judge David Reddy told the New York Times he did not have the power to dismiss the case entirely, as that decision would be up to District Attorney Zeke Wiedenfeld, but Reddy said McCarrick was "not likely to be competent," thus stalling the case procedure.
McCarrick did not attend Wednesday's hearing, but Reddy ruled McCarrick's attorney could enter a waiver of incompetency on his behalf. His attorney, Jerome Buting, said the ruling "isn't a victory or defeat; it's reality."
The next hearing was scheduled for December, but the case could be dismissed sooner.
McCarrick was charged last year with one count of fourth-degree sexual assault in Wisconsin on the accusation that he assaulted an 18-year-old in 1977 at a home on Geneva Lake. The charge carried the possibility of nine months in prison and a $10,000 fine.
The recent ruling in Wisconsin could be the last development in McCarrick's prosecution. The former cardinal also faced sexual assault charges from the same victim in Massachusetts, but a judge there declared him incompetent to stand trial in August.
McCarrick has said he has no memory of the allegations.
Kerry Nelligan, a psychologist of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine who diagnosed McCarrick with dementia and advised the court in Massachusetts, also influenced Reddy's decision in Wisconsin.
Mitchell Garabedian, the attorney representing the victim in the Massachusetts and Wisconsin cases, said his client is not discouraged by the judges' decisions and will continue to "seek validation and justice in the civil courts of New Jersey and New York" against McCarrick "and all relevant parties."
"Justice does not take a day off for clergy sexual abuse survivors and sexual abuse survivors," Garabedian said in a statement.
One of the most powerful and high-profile Catholic leaders in the United States, McCarrick led a public mass for Pope John Paul II in 1995 as archbishop of Newark. As archbishop of Washington, D.C. he participated in the funerals of Sen. Ted Kennedy and President Joe Biden's oldest son, Beau.
The New York Times first reported on the allegations against McCarrick in 2018. The Catholic Church conducted an internal investigation, finding him "credibly accused" of sexually assaulting an alter boy in the '70s. The church removed McCarrick from his position as archbishop of Washington, D.C., in 2018 and removed him from the priesthood the following year.
