By Emily Gurnon

Pioneer Press

A former top deputy of the Twin Cities archdiocese said he suggested last fall that Archbishop John Nienstedt resign in the wake of allegations that leadership mishandled clergy sexual abuse cases.

The Rev. Peter Laird, former vicar general and moderator of the curia, said in a May 12 deposition that resignation was “among options” he suggested to Nienstedt in late September or early October.

Laird himself resigned Oct. 3. Ten days earlier, Minnesota Public Radio reported that the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis possessed, but did not give to police, information regarding convicted St. Paul priest Curtis Wehmeyer’s sexual behavior.

The media report prompted Laird’s resignation, and his suggestion that Nienstedt do the same, Laird said.

Leaders in the archdiocese “have a responsibility to be accountable for decisions whenever they take place in an organization and — and to signal trust and that the most important thing is, is that the archdiocese doesn’t have anything to hide,” Laird said.

St. Paul attorney Jeffrey Anderson released the transcript and video recording of the deposition, taken as part of the case of Doe 1. Doe 1 is the pseudonym of a man who sued the archdiocese, the Diocese of Winona and former priest Thomas Adamson in May 2013. He claimed that Adamson sexually abused him in the 1970s and that the archdiocese moved him from parish to parish despite hearing of allegations of child abuse.