SOCIETY OF ST. JOHN
INVADES AND VANDALIZES
COLLEGE OF ST. JUSTIN MARTYR WEBSITE

March 21, 2002

Dear Friends of the College of St. Justin Martyr,

The Society of St. John (SSJ), a clerical association in the Diocese of Scranton, has reached a new low. With two SSJ priests already under investigation by the police for homosexual molestation, the SSJ has now invaded the College of St. Justin Martyr website in an effort to destroy the public exposure of the SSJ's misconduct. This action is in keeping with a long-standing cover-up by the SSJ and the Diocese of Scranton.

On Monday morning, March 18, 2002, the SSJ's webmaster, Mr. Anthony Mioni, obtained the password to our College website under false pretences, and then entered our website without our knowledge or consent. Having entered the website, Mr. Mioni proceeded to destroy the "Notices" page where we have regularly posted damaging evidence against the SSJ and the Diocese of Scranton. Mr. Mioni also changed the passwords to our e-mail accounts so that we could not access them. He then re-routed our e-mails to one location where he could read our private and confidential correspondence. We have no way of knowing whether Mr. Mioni, or anyone else at SSJ, copied or even destroyed our e-mail letters during this time. We are requesting that Mr. Mioni and the SSJ return any stolen electronic correspondence.

When our webmaster learned that our security had been breached by Mr. Mioni, he contacted our host who then re-set the website and issued our webmaster a new password. This effectively blocked Mr. Mioni and the SSJ from further invasion and destruction of our website.

After I learned of the SSJ's intrusion, I contacted the Pennsylvania state police. The police are investigating this matter, particularly with an eye to the ongoing investigation of the SSJ concerning allegations of homosexual molestation. The police are concerned that information from e-mails that may have been stolen could be used by the SSJ to identify potential victims in an effort to intimidate those who intend to bring lawsuits against the SSJ. People should know that, even prior to the SSJ's invasion of our website, some of the "Friends" of the SSJ have already attempted to confront someone whom they believed to be making accusations of molestation against SSJ priests. One of the accused priests has done the same.

When our webmaster contacted Mr. Mioni concerning his unauthorized entrance, Mr. Mioni justified his action by claiming that he was acting under the orders of his superiors in the Society of St. John. In an e-mail to the website host, Mr. Mioni also claimed that a "former employee" took the College website from the SSJ.

Mr. Mioni rests his claim on the fact that the College website was originally registered in the name of the Society of St. John. It is true that our webmaster, when he created the website for the College, was a member of SSJ, and he therefore originally registered the website in the SSJ name. Naturally he never expected, at the time of registration, that the College would dissociate itself from the SSJ, even though the College was already an independent corporation at the time. When our webmaster left the SSJ over a year ago, he continued to serve as our webmaster, but he never changed the registration to make it clear that the website belonged to the College. Such a change, however, was in our webmaster's power as sole administrator of the domain, but neither he nor we ever contemplated that the SSJ would even consider electronic tampering and the malicious destruction of property.

The website host has in fact ruled that our webmaster alone has the right to access our website. However, the host has decided to close the website as of March 29, 2002 in order to remove itself from any further involvement in this affair.

We have drawn the following conclusions from this episode:

It is evident that Mr. Mioni, in obtaining the password to our website, violated the host's procedures. The host, undoubtedly presuming good will on the part of someone connected to a religious community, was initially persuaded to act contrary to its own procedures. According to these procedures, our webmaster, as the one who registered the account, is the sole administrative and technical contact for the domain name. As such, he—and he alone—has authority to change the registrar, contact, and name server information of the domain name. If the SSJ wanted to remove our webmaster as the administrative and technical contact, the SSJ's only legitimate option was to submit to the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy. This the SSJ did not do.

Rather than attempt to remove our webmaster as administrative and technical contact—which attempt would have exposed their own intentions—Mr. Mioni and the SSJ took it upon themselves to acquire our password under false pretences, thereby circumventing the above policy. Clearly, both the host and Mr. Mioni had an ethical, if not legal, obligation to contact our webmaster before attempting to enter and co-opt our website.

Mr. Mioni and the SSJ certainly knew that the website had been operated for the last five months in complete independence from the SSJ. Furthermore, Mr. Mioni falsely insisted that the SSJ had paid for the website when, in fact, our webmaster had arranged to have the fee for the site donated to the College. Indeed, our host has confirmed that no money was ever collected for the website.

It is unclear at this time how this matter will be resolved legally. There is no question, however, that the Society's invasion of our website was grossly unethical and sought to evade the Dispute Resolution Policy established to settle such matters. Mr. Mioni's tampering with our e-mails was especially despicable.

We are stunned at the audacity of the SSJ. Rather than answering the charges we have made against them point by point, the SSJ has desperately attempted to hide from public view the evidence against them that we have systematically set forth. This evidence is relevant to an ongoing criminal investigation of and civil proceedings against the SSJ.

Sincerely,

Dr. Jeffrey M. Bond
President
College of St. Justin Martyr
142 Market Road
Greeley, PA 18425
570/685-5945
jmb3@ltis.net
www.saintjustinmartyr.org