The filing follows a civil trial in which a jury found the former bishop and other officials personally liable for the collapse of a pension fund serving employees of a Catholic hospital in Schenectady, New York.
A retired New York bishop has filed for personal bankruptcy protection in federal court after a state jury verdict found him, along with other officials, personally liable for the collapse of a Catholic hospital pension fund that left about 1,100 retirees without the lifetime monthly payments they were expecting.
It’s not clear whether a Catholic bishop in the United States has ever previously filed for personal bankruptcy protection.
Bishop Edward Scharfenberger, 77, who served as bishop of Albany from April 2014 until his retirement in October, is seeking protection from creditors for his assets valued at between $100,001 and $500,000, according to a filing Tuesday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of New York.
The seven-page filing does not list the bishop’s assets, but states that he has between 100 and 199 creditors and debts totaling between $1,000,001 and $10 million.
Last week, a jury found Bishop Scharfenberger 10% liable in a $54.2 million judgment in a civil lawsuit over the failed pension plan once provided by St. Clare’s Hospital in Schenectady, a Catholic hospital that operated from 1949 until 2008, according to The Evangelist, the diocese’s newspaper.
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