Judge Excoriates Seton Hall For Failing To Disclose Key Report To Lawyers In Abuse Lawsuit

Seton Hall University has ignored calls by New Jersey’s governor, three state lawmakers and a member of Congress to release a report critical of its new president’s failure to report allegations in a major sexual abuse scandal more than five years ago.

Now it could be a judge who forces the storied Catholic university’s hand.

Avion Benjamin, a state Superior Court judge in Essex County, New Jersey, spent the last seven months overseeing the litigation of 450 claims of sexual abuse within the Archdiocese of Newark and at Seton Hall. Her predecessor in the case, which began in 2019, long ago ordered both institutions to disclose a mountain of evidence to lawyers for the alleged victims.

Yet even Benjamin said she was stunned to learn from reporting in POLITICO about the existence of the report, which includes accusations that Monsignor Joseph Reilly, now Seton Hall’s president, failed to properly report abuse claims. Seton Hall and the archdiocese disclosed other materials related to abuse, but not the report.

“This report is from 2019. They had to find out about it in 2025 in POLITICO,” she said of the alleged victims’ attorneys, according to a transcript of a hearing held on Feb. 12. “I mean, that just sounds crazy to me.”

She has ordered Seton Hall to produce the 2019 report and related documents to her by Feb. 19, but the school is fighting to keep it all private.

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