If you feel that the new Georgia indictment of Rudy Giuliani and others is long overdue, you’re not alone. But perhaps no one welcomes the charges more than Richard Tollner and Christopher Fernan.

These men aren’t poll workers, election officials, Democratic activists or campaign advisors. Their beef with Giuliani is something different altogether.

In civil lawsuits, they say that as youngsters, they were sexually molested by Giuliani’s long-time best friend Msgr. Alan Placa, a pal Giuliani apparently stands by to this day. (They were classmates, fraternity brothers, went on double-dates and have been buddies for more than 40 years.)

Giuliani’s actions since Placa was first accused of abuse have certainly only added to the pain these men must feel.

In 2002, just a few weeks after Placa was suspended by his bishop because of Tollner’s abuse report, Giuliani not only publicly proclaimed Placa’s innocence, he also put Placa on the payroll of his company, Giuliani Partners, supposedly as a “senior vice-president.”

And one year later, a report surfaced in New York that concluded that Placa:

tried to molest an altar boy (and) was then given an assignment that “provided a large and continuous source of boys — a school,” and

was instrumental in developing the church’s policy to handle allegations of sexual abuse of children by other priests, using “deception and intimidation” to essentially keep the scandals quiet.

Placa, who worked primarily on Long Island, touted himself as an expert on the legal issues surrounding child sexual abuse and intervened in hundreds of cases for the church around the country.

Ironically, that damning report was written by a Suffolk County grand jury, not unlike the one that just named Giuliani a “co-conspirator’ in Donald Trump’s convoluted, months-long effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election.

Alan Placa

These jurors, however, took a long hard look at charges of corruption by religious officials, not political ones. Their conclusions were startling then, and are still startling now, in large part because like the far-ranging efforts to overturn the 2020 election, Placa involved other officials in his diabolical scheme to keep the church’s abuse cover ups covered up.

(He was also on the board of a Massachusetts-based church-sponsored “treatment center” to which predator priests were sent. It eventually closed after repeated scandals.)

How close are Giuliani and Placa?

“Few people are closer to Giuliani than Placa,” Rolling Stone magazine has reported. Placa “is part of the former New York mayor’s innermost circle of friends and advisers” and “played a key role in many of Giuliani’s major life events, most recently when he officiated at the 2017 wedding of Giuliani’s son, Andrew, who works at the Trump White House.”

He reportedly “found a loophole” that allowed Giuliani to annul his first marriage, then performed the service when Giuliani married his next wife, baptized their children, “officiated at the funeral of Giuliani’s mother, and was photographed on a trip to Rome with Giuliani and his third wife.”

But Placa has only been accused of crimes, not found guilty, right?

In fact, Placa hasn’t ever faced actual criminal charges, largely because the statute of limitations on possible child sex crimes had expired by the time his accusers stepped forward. But at least two civil suits — alleging child sexual abuse and cover ups — are currently pending.

In fairness, however, it should be noted that the Vatican office handling abuse cases acquitted Placa on molestation charges. Catholic officials, however, apparently refused to even consider the allegations of Placa working to conceal the child sex crimes of his fellow clerics.

And the Long Island grand jurors, who likely considered much more evidence with likely more open minds, concluded “Everyone in the school (where Placa worked) knew to stay away from (him),” in part because he was “relentless” in his pursuit of victims.

But the bottom line is that Giuliani’s dear friend is accused of molesting boys and has been described as “the imperious architect of policies that protected pedophiles” (in the words of the New York Times. Still, “America’s Mayor” loyally stands by him, just like Giuliani loyally stands by Trump.

Despite their civil sex abuse lawsuits against Placa, it’s unlikely that Tollner and Fernan will ever face the monsignor in court. (Unless tossed out on a technicality, virtually all such cases end up settling.) Still, they must feel some satisfaction that while Placa may never be questioned under oath at trial, his best friend and protector, Rudy Giuliani, at long last probably will.

Clohessy was co-director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, for 30 years.

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Editor’s note: An earlier version of this op-ed cited a third man, Peter Starks, who accused Placa. However, Starks has not alleged sexual abuse against Placa, but accused him of deceiving him into settling his clergy sex abuse suit against a different priest. The News regrets the error.