PROVIDENCE, R.I. -- The Providence Journal, the Associated Press, The New York Times and the National Catholic Reporter have asked the Rhode Island Superior Court to unseal documents in lawsuits contesting the will of an elderly widow who gave about $60 million to the Legion of Christ, a Catholic religious order engulfed by scandal in recent years.
In the motion filed Tuesday, the four media companies asked Judge Michael Silverstein to vacate a seal initially issued by the Smithfield Probate Court in connection with the will and trusts of Gabrielle D. Mee, a devoutly Catholic woman who lived out her final years in a Legion of Christ Consecration center in Smithfield.
She died in 2008 and gave all her money to the order.
Her niece filed three lawsuits challenging the distribution of her aunt's assets, but Silverstein dismissed them, ruling that she didn't have standing.