BURLINGTON (KY)
Kentucky.com
Associated Press
BURLINGTON, Ky. - Attorneys do not have to turn over the names of victims of sexual abuse at the hands of priests in northern Kentucky until there is a full hearing on the issue, the Kentucky Court of Appeals ruled.
The appeals court on Friday issued an emergency stay of an order that would have forced attorneys in the class-action lawsuit against the Roman Catholic Diocese of Covington to give prosecutors the names of their clients, as well as details of the alleged abuse.
The court set arguments in the case for Oct. 11.
Along with names, Judge John Potter ordered attorneys to give prosecutors contact information and any allegations of other abuses by the priests. Potter said the names of the victims would not be made public unless necessary.
Attorney Stan Chesley of Cincinnati, who represents the victims, and Carrie Huff, the attorney for the diocese, objected, saying the victims were promised anonymity and some information was passed along to prosecutors throughout the civil case.
MEMPHIS (TN)
Tennessean
Associated Press
MEMPHIS — The Catholic Diocese of Memphis is accused in a lawsuit filed Thursday of failing to protect a young girl who was sexually abused by a priest in the late 1990s.
The lawsuit is the second filed by a Florida law firm that says it represents several victims of abuse by priests in Memphis. The firm has said other lawsuits may be filed.
The latest suit was filed on behalf of a 21-year-old woman identified as Jane Doe No. 2. It alleges that she was abused by a Catholic priest, Edward Nguyen, in Memphis between 1997 and 1999.
ST. LOUIS (MO)
CW11
By Jeff Bernthal,
September 27, 2006
South St. Louis — The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests has for the first time taken their advocacy for abuse victims to a billboard. The billboard asks victims to contact S.N.A.P. It will stay up for three months. The cost was covered by an anonymous donor. WATCH
The billboard went up near the intersection of Watson and Chippewa in South St. Louis. That's because S.N.A.P. believes the pastor of nearby Watson Terrace Christian Church should be removed.
Reverand Carl King was not available for comment Wednesday, but S.N.A.P. doesn't feel he should be in charge of a congregation. "Reverand King has been sexually inappropriate with a mentally-challenged adult and while this woman has reached the age of maturity, she certainly doesn't function as an adult," said Barbara Dorris, with S.N.A.P.
NEBRASKA
San Francisco Chronicle
Friday, September 29, 2006
(09-29) 20:55 PDT Omaha, Neb. (AP) --
A jury on Friday threw out a lawsuit filed by a man who says he was sexually abused at Boys Town, the home for wayward youths made famous in a 1938 Spencer Tracy film.
A Douglas County jury deliberated for just over an hour after a two-week trial before ruling against 23-year-old John Sturzenegger. He claimed he was sexually abused by Glenn Moore in 1997 while a 14-year-old resident of Boys Town. He had sought up to $1 million dollars in damages.
Moore said Friday he was relieved to be vindicated.
"I'm glad it came out the way it did," Moore said. "Finally, I can tell everyone, 'That's not me. That's not my family.'"
MEXICO
International Herald Tribune
The Associated Press
Published: September 30, 2006
MEXICO CITY The Mexican Bishops' Conference on Friday criticized a Los Angeles-based lawsuit accusing Mexico's most prominent cardinal of covering up for a fugitive priest, saying it has generated an "unjust media scandal."
The conference said it supported Cardinal Norberto Rivera, the archbishop of Mexico City, who denies the charges and urged a fugitive priest wanted in the U.S. to come forward.
"In name of all the bishops of the country, we express our solidarity and fraternal support before this unjust media scandal that you have been the object of in recent days," it said in a letter to Rivera signed by Bishop Carlos Aguiar Retes, the conference's secretary-general.
A lawsuit filed last week in Los Angeles Superior Court alleges Rivera conspired with Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony to protect the Rev. Nicolas Aguilar, who has been formally charged in California with 19 felony counts of committing lewd acts on a child. Mahony also denies the charges.
HOUSTON (TX)
Houston Chronicle
From Staff And Wire Reports
Archbishop Daniel DiNardo of the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston was named in a civil suit seeking the release of the names of about 5,000 abusive priests nationwide.
DiNardo was among four bishops of archdioceses in Texas served with the lawsuit last week.
The archdiocese could not be reached for comment late Friday.
The lawsuit was filed on behalf of the family of Dan O'Connell of Wisconsin, who was shot and killed in 2002 by a suspected pedophile priest, according to PR Newswire.
An intern working with O'Connell also was killed.
CONNECTICUT
The Advocate
By Stephen P. Clark
Staff Writer
Published September 30 2006
A Catholic advocacy group wants the Bridgeport Diocese to establish safeguards to avoid further financial misconduct by church leaders, steps the group hopes other dioceses in the country will adopt.
Voice of the Faithful, a lay group that emerged in 2002 amid the church sex-abuse scandals, will develop proposals over the next six months that encourage more participation from parishioners and financial accountability from church leaders.
The group will present recommendations in April at its annual conference at Fairfield University.
DELRAY BEACH (FL)
Irish Independent
THE two Irish priests accused of stealing $8.6m (€7m) in offerings and gifts from their parish in the US may have taken much more.
Florida police yesterday reacted to claims by one of the priest's lawyers that the alleged pilfering over a 42-year period had been grossly exaggerated by the authorities.
"We didn't come up with the figure of $8.6m, that was the forensic auditor in the case," Delray police spokesman Jeff Messer said yesterday.
DELRAY BEACH (FL)
Sun-Sentinel
By Mike Clary
Posted September 30 2006
Delray Beach · Two priests may be accused of misappropriating more than $8.6 million from the collection plates, but St. Vincent Ferrer Catholic Church is far from broke.
Thanks to "foundations set up for benefit of our school and church, we are well endowed," said the Rev. Tom Skindeleski, the current pastor. "The problem is, the money didn't go through proper channels, through the diocese."
Indeed, Skindeleski, who was named pastor at St. Vincent 11 months ago, said he is unsure just how much money the parish has or what its investments are, since boxes of church records have been seized by the police and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.
PORT ST. LUCIE (FL)
TCPalm
By CHRIS YOUNG
chris.young@scripps.com
September 30, 2006
PORT ST. LUCIE — Friends and neighbors of two priests accused of stealing more than $8.6 million from their Palm Beach County parish were stunned by the charges against the pair.
A yearlong investigation into church finances resulted Thursday in charges of grand theft filed against the two priests, John A. Skehan and Frances B. Guinan. Skehan, 79, was held in the Palm Beach County jail on $400,000 bail, while Guinan, 63, still was at large Friday, reportedly on an Australian cruise.
Barbara Lynn, whose mother allegedly received money from Skehan, said she was "just shocked" when she heard about Skehan's arrest and gifts — and police allegations that her mother, M. Hilda Nataline, had been romantically involved with the retired monsignor.
Lynn, 55, denied any intimate relationship between the two, saying her mother, now a widow, had been happily married with four children.
DELRAY BEACH (FL)
Miami Herald
BY STEPHANIE SLATER
The Palm Beach Post
DELRAY BEACH - Detectives on Friday served more search warrants and uncovered more secret bank accounts as they continued to pore over the financial records of two South Florida priests alleged to have mishandled $8.6 million in church donations.
''The dollar amount is constantly changing,'' Detective Thomas Whatley said.
A 15-month investigation by Whatley and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement came to a head Wednesday night when they charged former St. Vincent Ferrer Catholic Church pastors John Skehan and Francis B. Guinan with grand theft over $100,000.
Skehan and Guinan are believed to have diverted millions of dollars from collection plates and other donations to the church during the past 42 years.
Guinan, ordained in 1966, served at Epiphany, St. Michael the Archangel and St. Hugh in the Miami area from 1969 to 1975, according to the Diocese of Palm Beach. He also was pastor of Christ the King in Perrine in the early 1980s.
DELRAY BEACH (FL)
Miami Herald
BY STEPHANIE SLATER
The Palm Beach Post
DELRAY BEACH - Police officials served more search warrants and uncovered more secret bank accounts Friday as they continued to pore over the financial records of two priests alleged to have mishandled $8.6 million in church donations.
''The dollar amount is constantly changing,'' Detective Thomas Whatley said.
A 15-month investigation by Whatley and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement culminated Wednesday night when they charged former St. Vincent Ferrer Catholic Church pastors John Skehan and Francis Guinan with grand theft over $100,000.
Skehan, a former Broward and Miami-Dade priest, and Guinan, also a former Miami-Dade priest, are believed to have diverted millions of dollars from collection plates and other donations to the church on George Bush Boulevard the past 42 years.
Detectives said the priests hid the money in numerous ''slush funds,'' and spent it on their female companions, trips to the Bahamas and Las Vegas, real estate, and personal expenses, including property taxes, credit card payments and condo association fees.
NEW JERSEY
The Warren Reporter
Friday, September 29, 2006
By WAYNE THORPE
Staff Writer
"Innocent until proven guilty" is a precept of the American judicial system. It's also a frequent response by parishioners of St. Joseph's Catholic Church in Washington to the question of whether former pastor Rev. Robert Ascolese -- "Father Bob" to the faithful -- is guilty of the theft charges leveled against him last week in state Superior Court.
Ascolese was charged last week with stealing more than $600,000 from various charities and church programs over the past four years, including rigging Powerball Raffles, intended to raise money for St. Joseph's Catholic Academy. The Academy closed last year.
Ascolese is also charged with using sophisticated scams to funnel charitable donations to himself. Charged with him were William and Stella Quilban of Hampton, who are alleged to have assisted Ascolese is scamming money from the Merck Foundation.
MISSOURI
Neosho Daily News
By John Ford / Daily News Associate Editor
Published: Friday, September 29, 2006 10:52 PM CDT
A Newton County judge recused himself Thursday before the start of arraignment proceedings for George Otis Johnston.
Division III Associate Circuit Court Judge Kevin Lee Selby effectively took himself off the case, which now goes back to Fortieth Circuit Court Judge Timothy Perigo for reassignment.
According to Bill Dobbs, Newton County assistant prosecutor, the judge did not reveal a reason for the move, which came minutes before Johnston was to be arraigned on eight felony counts of statutory sodomy.
“It's difficult to say whether it will remain in the circuit or not,” Dobbs said in an interview Thursday afternoon at the Newton County courthouse. “Obviously, it can't go to [Newton County Division II Associate Circuit Court Judge Greg] Stremel because he heard the preliminary hearing. And the only other sitting judge is John LePage, who has recused himself from a comparative case.”
Dobbs said if the case goes out of the 40th Circuit Court, it will be up to Missouri's Office of the Supreme Court Administrator, OSCA, to decide which judge will hear it.
Dobbs said judges do not have to provide a reason to remove themselves from a case, under Missouri law.
Johnston is the pastor of Grandview Valley Baptist Church North, an offshoot of the Grand Valley Independent Baptist Church, which is pastored by his nephew, Raymond Lambert.
PINEVILLE (MO)
Neosho Daily News
By John Ford /Daily News Associate Editor
Published: Friday, September 29, 2006 10:52 PM CDT
PINEVILLE - A change of judge has been granted in the case of four McDonald County church leaders accused of felony child sexual abuse.
Raymond Lambert, pastor of Grand Valley Independent Baptist Church, and his wife, Patty Lambert, face felony child abuse charges stemming from incidents dating back to 1995. Meanwhile, Patty Lambert's brothers, Paul and Tom Epling, face child sexual abuse charges dating back to the late 1970s.
A request by an alleged victim in the case to disqualify McDonald County Associate Circuit Court Judge John LePage has been granted. Fortieth Circuit Court Judge Timothy Perigo has given the go-ahead to assign the case to Newton County Division II Associate Circuit Court Judge Greg Stremel. Paperwork on the assignment was expected to be completed by early this afternoon, according to a spokeswoman in Judge Perigo's office.
“All four cases have been sent ahead on the motion to disqualify,” said Dan Bagley, assistant prosecutor for McDonald County. “One of our victims had a minor concern and we went ahead with the request. We anticipated different motions and wanted to go ahead and act on the request of the victim for a motion to disqualify.”
LOS ANGELES (CA)
Yahoo!
LOS ANGELES, Sept. 29 /PRNewswire/ -- Leaders of a support group for clergy molestation victims are disappointed with top Mexico City Catholic officials for what they call "harsh and mean-spirited public comments" about a Mexican man who was raped by a priest and about the church's child sex abuse and cover up scandal.
Two US men who help lead SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, are writing Cardinal Norberto Rivera Carrera, asking him to "rein in" his staff and reach out to molestation victims, rather than criticize them.
The letter, sent today to the Mexico City chancery office by fax and email, is signed by Eric Barragan of Ventura California and David Clohessy of St. Louis Missouri. Barragan helped start SNAP's Mexico City chapter, and Clohessy is the group's executive director.
Both men attended a news conference in Mexico City earlier this month at which Joaquin Aguilar Mendez announced his civil child molestation lawsuit against the priest who raped him, Fr. Nicholas Aguilar. Rivera and a California church official, Cardinal Roger Mahony, were named as defendants in that suit.
UNITED STATES
Winston-Salem Journal
RELIGION NEWS SERVICE
America's Catholic bishops have released their new guidelines for seminary training. Here's the question: Do these regulations represent their perception of - and solution to - the sex-abuse scandal that has engulfed the church for nearly five years?
If so, church leaders apparently believe that a lack of celibacy caused the crisis and that more of it will cure it. Indeed, they give the impression that the prime purpose of seminaries is to preserve celibacy and the chief work of the priest is to be celibate. What were they thinking?
The bishops now propose to ban any applicant who has been involved in the sexual abuse of a minor or shows evidence of sexual attraction to children. Since the first is a crime and the second is common sense, the question is, "Didn't you hierarchs know this before?"
SNOHOMISH (WA)
Herald
By Jim Haley and Kaitlin Manry
Herald Writers
SNOHOMISH - A Roman Catholic parish priest and pastor in Snohomish for two decades will be punished for allegedly abusing an altar boy in the early 1970s.
The Archdiocese of Seattle on Friday announced that the Rev. Dennis V. Champagne has been put on the status "of a priest on prayer and penance" and has been permanently restricted from public ministry.
That means Champagne will remain a priest, "but he is still serving a penalty," archdiocese spokesman Greg Magnoni said Friday. He will be able to administer the sacraments in a limited and private way, but only with the permission of Archbishop Alex Burnett, Magnoni said.
Champagne served as a parish priest at St. Michael Parish from 1971 to 1979 before being named pastor there. He served until 1999. He later served at St. John Bosco Parish in Pierce County and Immaculate Conception Parish, Steilacoom, until he was placed on administrative leave in June 2002.
WASHINGTON
The Seattle Times
By Janet I. Tu
Seattle Times staff reporter
The Vatican has permanently barred from public ministry Dennis V. Champagne, a local priest accused of child sexual abuse. The decision brings resolution to the last of 13 cases evaluated by a Seattle Archdiocese review board.
The Vatican decision, announced by the archdiocese Friday, means Champagne can no longer call himself "Father," wear priestly garb or present himself as a priest.
Champagne was placed on administrative leave in 2002 after an allegation resurfaced that he had fondled a boy in 1979.
BIRMINGHAM (AL)
Montgomery Advertiser
The Associated Press
BIRMINGHAM -- Bishop David Foley, the head of the Birmingham Catholic Diocese, has been served with and named as a defendant in an unprecedented civil child sex abuse lawsuit brought by the family of a murdered Wisconsin man. It was served on local Catholic officials last week by a county sheriff.
The lawsuit, which seeks no monetary damages, was filed in August in St. Croix County Circuit Court, Wisconsin (Court File No.06CV581). It asks a state judge to force America's 194 Catholic bishops to disclose the names of roughly 5,000 proven, admitted and credibly accused abusive priests in the US. The suit is being brought by the family of Dan O'Connell of Wisconsin, who, along with a co-worker, was shot and killed in February 2002 by a suspected pedophile priest who also owned guns and pornography.
ROCKVILLE CENTRE (NY)
Newsday
BY EDEN LAIKIN
INVESTIGATIONS TEAM
September 30, 2006
A Holbrook woman Friday filed a $6-million lawsuit against the Diocese of Rockville Centre, Bishop William Murphy, a priest and a diocesan official, charging that she was traumatized earlier this year when she met the official to discuss sexual abuse allegations against the priest and the official tried to re-enact the long-ago events she claimed took place.
Janique Polimine, 39, says in the lawsuit she was sexually abused in 1980 by the Rev. William Logan while she was a confirmation student at St. James Roman Catholic Church in Seaford. She charges that at a meeting in February, Eileen Puglisi, director of the diocese Office for the Protection of Children and Young People, made her demonstrate how she claimed she had been touched and held by Logan in empty basement stairwells when she was 13.
Polimine said in the suit that Puglisi tried to "intimidate" her by saying things like: "You probably looked forward to these secret meetings" and "You must have felt a normal type of attraction to Father Logan." The suit says Puglisi made Polimine feel "dirty and ashamed."
Diocese spokesman Sean Dolan, Puglisi, Logan and Murphy declined to comment.
LOS ANGELES (CA)
Ventura County Star
By Gillian Flaccus, The Associated Press
September 30, 2006
LOS ANGELES — Dozens of people claiming they were abused by priests in the nation's largest Roman Catholic archdiocese would divide $60 million under a settlement on the verge of completion, several attorneys said.
The settlement being drafted by attorneys for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and the alleged victims would give 45 claimants a total of $60 million, said Venus Soltan, a plaintiffs' attorney. The settlement would encompass alleged victims whose claims are not covered by the church's insurance policies, she said.
If distributed equally, each alleged victim would get $1.3 million, although how the money would be divided remained unclear.
"We are in the final stages of documentation, and the settlement should be coming public within a week," said Soltan, who represents two of the people who would receive money under the agreement. "It's a very big deal because it's the first time Los Angeles has settled any of its cases."
WASHINGTON
The News Tribune
ROB TUCKER; The News Tribune
Published: September 30th, 2006 01:00 AM
Dennis Champagne, a former priest in Lakewood and Steilacoom, has been permanently banned from public ministry, the Catholic Archdiocese of Seattle announced Friday.
Champagne was accused of sexually molesting a boy while serving in a Snohomish parish in 1979. The archdiocese placed him on administrative leave in June 2002, and he resigned as pastor that October. He was serving as pastor of St. John Bosco Catholic Church in Lakewood and Immaculate Conception mission in Steilacoom at the time.
Champagne, 61, has now been given the status of a priest on prayer and penance for the rest of his life.
SEATTLE (WA)
The Olympian
SEATTLE - Another priest accused of child sexual abuse has been permanently removed from public ministry by the Vatican, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Seattle said Friday.
The decision on Dennis V. Champagne, 61, brings to nine the number of priests from the archdiocese who have been removed from ministry over sex abuse allegations, spokesman Greg Magnoni said.
Through Dec. 31, 2005, the archdiocese had paid out $26 million in related counseling fees, attorney fees and settlements, he said.
The decision was made by the Vatican, acting on the recommendation of an archdiocesan review board, the archdiocese said in a statement. No other such recommendations are pending, the statement said.
MIAMI (FL)
UPI
MIAMI, Sept. 29 (UPI) -- A former Roman Catholic priest in South Florida, defrocked for alleged sex abuse, says the diocese of Miami defamed him and he is seeking reinstatement.
The Rev. Jan Malicki, in a news conference at his lawyer's office, said he may sue two women who accused him of sexual misconduct, the Miami Herald reported. The diocese settled with the women last year.
"The archdiocese unjustly took away my good name, my life of priesthood and carried out my character assassination," Malicki said.
AUSTRALIA
ABC
A court has heard how a southern Tasmanian man told a teenage girl he had her mother's permission to teach her sexual techniques.
The 51-year-old man has pleaded guilty to maintaining a sexual relationship with the girl while he was living with her mother in the early 90s.
The man began abusing the girl in 1993 when she was 15. ...
Defence lawyer Michael Daly told the court his client had suffered significant childhood sexual abuse himself at the hands of a priest.
The man will be sentenced next week.
KANSAS CITY (KS)
PR Newswire
KANSAS CITY, Kan., Sept. 29 /PRNewswire/ -- Archbishop Joseph Naumann,
the head of the Kansas City (KS) Catholic Archdiocese, and Bishop Paul
Coakley, head of the Salina Catholic Diocese, have been served with and
named as defendants in an unprecedented civil child sex abuse lawsuit
brought by the family of a murdered Wisconsin man. It was served on local
Catholic officials at both dioceses last week by a county sheriff.
CROOKSTON (MN)
PR Newswire
CROOKSTON, Minn., Sept. 29 /PRNewswire/ -- Bishop Victor Balke, the
head of the Crookston Catholic Diocese, has been served with and named as a
defendant in an unprecedented civil child sex abuse lawsuit brought by the
family of a murdered Wisconsin man. It was served on local Catholic
officials last week by a county sheriff.
ROCHESTER (NY)
PR Newswire
ROCHESTER, N.Y., Sept. 29 /PRNewswire/ -- Bishop Matthew Clark, the
head of the Rochester Catholic Diocese, has been served with and named as a
defendant in an unprecedented civil child sex abuse lawsuit brought by the
family of a murdered Wisconsin man. It was served on local Catholic
officials last week by a county sheriff.
DES MOINES (IA)
PR Newswire
DES MOINES, Iowa, Sept. 29 /PRNewswire/ -- Bishop Joseph Charron, the
head of the Des Moines Catholic Diocese, has been served with and named as
a defendant in an unprecedented civil child sex abuse lawsuit brought by
the family of a murdered Wisconsin man. It was served on local Catholic
officials last week by a county sheriff.
SAGINAW (MI)
PR Newswire
SAGINAW, Mich., Sept. 29 /PRNewswire/ -- Bishop Robert Carlson, the
head of the Saginaw Catholic Diocese, has been served with and named as a
defendant in an unprecedented civil child sex abuse lawsuit brought by the
family of a murdered Wisconsin man. It was served on local Catholic
officials last week by a county sheriff.
JOLIET (IL)
PR Newswire
JOLIET, Ill., Sept. 29 /PRNewswire/ -- Bishop J. Peter Sartain, the
head of the Joliet Catholic Diocese, has been served with and named as a
defendant in an unprecedented civil child sex abuse lawsuit brought by the
family of a murdered Wisconsin man. It was served on local Catholic
officials last week by a county sheriff.
COVINGTON (KY)
PR Newswire
COVINGTON, Ky., Sept. 29 /PRNewswire/ -- Bishop Roger Foys, the head of
the Covington Catholic Diocese, has been served with and named as a
defendant in an unprecedented civil child sex abuse lawsuit brought by the
family of a murdered Wisconsin man. It was served on local Catholic
officials last week by a county sheriff.
BIRMINGHAM (AL)
PR Newswire
BIRMINGHAM, Ala., Sept. 29 /PRNewswire/ -- Bishop David Foley, the head
of the Birmingham Catholic Diocese, has been served with and named as a
defendant in an unprecedented civil child sex abuse lawsuit brought by the
family of a murdered Wisconsin man. It was served on local Catholic
officials last week by a county sheriff.
BURLINGTON (VT)
PR Newswire
BURLINGTON, Vt., Sept. 29 /PRNewswire/ -- Bishop Salvatore Matano, the
head of the Burlington Catholic Diocese, has been served with and named as
a defendant in an unprecedented civil child sex abuse lawsuit brought by
the family of a murdered Wisconsin man. It was served on local Catholic
officials last week by a county sheriff.
ARLINGTON (VA)
PR Newswire
ARLINGTON, Va., Sept. 29 /PRNewswire/ -- Bishop Paul S. Loverde, the
head of the Arlington (VA) Catholic Diocese, has been served with and named
as a defendant in an unprecedented civil child sex abuse lawsuit brought by
the family of a murdered Wisconsin man. It was served on local Catholic
officials last week by a county sheriff.
MIAMI (FL)
Reuters
By Jim Loney
MIAMI (Reuters) - Two Roman Catholic priests allegedly embezzled more than $8 million (4.3 million pounds) from their church and spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on real estate, travel, rare coins and girlfriends, police in Florida said on Friday.
The retired priests were accused of skimming cash from collection plates and bequests to the St. Vincent Ferrer Catholic Church in Delray Beach, Florida, over a period of years and channelling the money into secret "slush funds" they used to pay personal bills, Delray Beach police said.
Former St. Vincent pastor John Skehan, 79, was arrested on a charge of grand theft over $100,000 and was being held in the Palm Beach County jail.
A warrant was issued for the arrest of Father Francis Guinan, 63, on the same charge. He was on a cruise in Australia but had contacted the police, the Palm Beach Post reported.
LOS ANGELES (CA)
The Mercury News
GILLIAN FLACCUS
Associated Press
LOS ANGELES - The nation's largest Roman Catholic archdiocese could sign a $60 million settlement with dozens of alleged victims of clergy abuse within days, several attorneys told The Associated Press.
The settlement being drafted by attorneys for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and the alleged victims would give 45 claimants a total of $60 million, said Venus Soltan, a plaintiffs' attorney. The settlement would encompass alleged victims whose claims are not covered by the church's insurance policies, she said.
If distributed equally, each alleged victim would get $1.3 million, although how the money would be divided remained unclear.
"We are in the final stages of documentation and the settlement should be coming public within a week," said Soltan, who represents two of the people who would receive money under the agreement. "It's a very big deal because it's the first time Los Angeles has settled any of its cases."
WATSEKA (IL)
The Daily Journal
By Jo McCord
jmccord@daily-journal.com
815-432-3685
Testimony in the Timothy Rademacher sentencing hearing Wednesday for sexual assault against boys held the rapt attention of the crowded Watseka courtroom of Judge Gordon Lustfeldt.
The former youth pastor at the United Methodist Church at Ashkum, Rademacher, a rural Kankakee resident, made a 30-minute speech of apology that brought his former parishioners, family, friends and victims to tears.
He described how the crimes happened, saying that one of the boys stayed over night and Rademacher, now 27, went to him in bed and had sex with him. The next day the boy acted as if nothing had happened, he said.
It happened frequently over two years. Then they both made vows to stop.
SEATTLE (WA)
The Seattle Times
By Misha Berson
Seattle Times theater critic
"I know nothing except the fact of my ignorance," concluded Socrates.
One can easily agree with him while watching "Doubt," John Patrick Shanley's justly honored Pulitzer Prize play, now in its splendid regional debut at Seattle Repertory Theatre.
Riveting, unsettling and meticulously directed by Warner Shook, "Doubt" keeps one's sympathies oscillating between the moral absolutism of a stern Catholic school principal, Sister Aloysius (played with steely rectitude by Kandis Chappell) and the righteous fervor and more progressive stance of Father Flynn (mercurial Corey Brill), a priest she fears is a child molester.
The ethical ground of "Doubt" consists of shifting sand. And that is the genius of Shanley's compact yet long-reverberating script. If you get comfy in your assumptions, "Doubt" plunges you back into a gray moral zone where certainty is a mirage.
FLORIDA
Sun-Sentinel
By James D. Davis
Religion Editor
Posted September 29 2006
The attorney for a suspended Broward County priest said Thursday that a sexual misconduct lawsuit against the priest had been dropped, and that the Archdiocese of Miami would be asked to reinstate him.
The Rev. Jan Malicki, a former associate priest at St. David Catholic Church in Davie, had been accused of abusing two women in the 1990s. However, the women have abandoned their lawsuit, his attorney Ellis Rubin said.
"Father Malicki's years in purgatory have finally ended," Rubin said after a news conference in Miami. "There is no obstacle now to his being reinstated as a full priest."
However, archdiocesan spokeswoman Mary Ross Agosta said the development didn't affect Malicki's status of suspension with pay. Reinstatement matters are handled "on a case-by-case basis," and no decision has been made to reactivate Malicki, she said.
ALBUQUERQUE (NM)
New Mexican
The Associated Press
September 29, 2006
ALBUQUERQUE — A former Raton priest accused of sexual misconduct with a minor has been sentenced to five years in prison and five years of supervised probation.
George Silva, 74, was sentenced Thursday morning by U.S. District Judge Judith Herrera, who ordered Silva to surrender to U.S. Marshals by Monday morning. He was being held at a halfway house.
Silva reached an agreement with prosecutors in June in which he pleaded guilty to one count of transporting a 14-yearold boy from New Mexico to France and Portugal for illicit sexual activity last year. Silva avoided a trial and a possible sentence of up to 30 years.
“We are pleased with the effort that federal law enforcement applied to this matter,” said the boy’s attorney, Jeffrey Trespel. “We think the plea bargain provided a just sentence.”
Celine Radigan, a spokeswoman for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Santa Fe, said the archdiocese cooperated with investigators in Silva’s case and has a zero-tolerance policy on issues related to sexual misconduct.
BULGARIA
Sofia News Agency
Crime: 29 September 2006, Friday.
An evangelist priest from the tragically known city of Pazardzhik has been sentenced to ten years in a high-security prison for fornication and rape of a 13-year-old girl.
The 28-year-old Krassimir Spasov served at the evangelist Bulgarian God's Church, located in the city's Roma-populated Iztok District. He had contact with lots of local kids as he was in charge of the children church choir.
Spasov raped his young victim a total of four times, threatening her with a knife every time, and telling her that he would kill her if she resisted or told anyone. The last time he violated the girl, her mother witnessed the crime. Spasov will now also have to pay BGN 12,000 to the victim's family for moral damages.
Authorities believe that the man fornicated with other local children, under the pretence that he was trying to introduce them to religion.
MIAMI (FL)
NBC 6
MIAMI -- After a judge dismissed a civil lawsuit accusing a priest of molesting two women, the priest is now asking to be allowed to return to the church.
The Rev. Jan Malicki, who has served as a Roman Catholic priest for more than 30 years, said he is ready to get back to hearing confessions and celebrating Mass. A judge dismissed on Thursday a $50 million civil lawsuit against Malicki that accused him of molesting two women.
"Father Malicki has been cleared of any criminal charges by the Broward state attorney's office," said defense attorney Ellis Rubin.
The Archdiocese of Miami said that regardless of the ruling, Malicki's classification as being on a "leave of absence" is unchanged.
MINNESOTA
St. Cloud Times
By David Unze dunze@stcloudtimes.com
Published: September 25. 2006 1:00AM - Last updated: September 25. 2006 12:47PM
The sisters of a former St. John’s University student asked St. John’s Abbey today to confirm that a visiting professor sexually abused their brother in 1970.
Rita Prince and Teri Ryan were at the Abbey today to ask Abbot John Klassen to publicly acknowledge that the Rev. Paul A. GoPaul abused their brother, Patrick Ryan. They also wanted to see a letter their father had written to St. John’s in 1970 that detailed the reasons Patrick Ryan wasn’t returning to St. John’s after a little more than one year of schooling.
GoPaul drugged and raped Patrick Ryan, the sisters said. After dropping out of college, Ryan returned home to California a changed person, they said. He spent time in a mental health facility, escaped and hanged himself in a California jail in 1971.
“It did happen 35 years ago, but the pain is as if it was yesterday,” Prince said of the abuse against her brother.
Klassen is out of the country until later this week. Abbey spokesman the Rev. William Skudlarek met Prince and Ryan at the Abbey Church today and expressed sympathy for the sisters’ sorrow. The first the Abbey had heard about allegations against GoPaul was in 2002, he said.
ALASKA
Fairbanks News-Miner
By Mary Beth Smetzer
Published September 23, 2006
The names of two more Jesuits were added to a growing list of accused clergy as two more sexual abuse civil suits were filed this week in Alaska Superior Courts.
In Fairbanks, two men identified as Jimmy Doe 1 and 2, allege the Rev. Norman Donohue, a Jesuit priest, sexually abused them and other male children when he was resident pastor in Kaltag and Nulato. Donohue died in 1983 at age 75.
In Bethel Superior Court, Jenny Does 1 through 3 filed suit claiming they were sexually abused as children by Jesuit brother Ignatius J. Jakes, an Inupiat Eskimo. Jakes died in 1999 at age 75.
The latest complaints bring the number of individuals named in similar suits against the Fairbanks diocese and the Society of Jesus Alaska and Oregon Province to 14. The tally includes 12 Jesuits and two Catholic volunteers.
MASSACHUSETTS
Boston Herald
By O’Ryan Johnson
Friday, September 15, 2006
The former cantor of a Randolph temple who sexually abused a mentally retarded woman for nearly two years must pay $8.4 million to her family, under a judgment filed against him yesterday in Norfolk Civil Court.
“For the family it’s a vindication that they really didn’t get in the criminal proceedings,” said their attorney, Adam Satin, with Lubin & Meyer, P.C.
Robert D. Shapiro, 73, pleaded guilty to 14 counts of indecent assault and battery on a mentally retarded person in 2005, but cut a deal and managed to avoid jail time. He was sentenced to a year of house arrest and 10 years probation.
Satin said the woman Shapiro admitted to abusing was in her late 20s, but had the mental functioning of a 5- to 7-year-old child. Satin said Shapiro, due to his friendship with the family and his status in the temple, was the only person outside her family who was allowed to see her unsupervised.
MASSACHUSETTS
The Patriot Ledger
By SUE REINERT
The Patriot Ledger
A former Randolph cantor who admitted molesting a mentally retarded woman must pay $5.2 million to the victim and $750,000 to her parents.
A Norfolk Superior Court jury ruled in favor of the woman and her family yesterday after four hours of deliberation. With interest, the award will total $8.4 million, the family’s lawyer, Adam Satin, said today.
The family had sued Robert Shapiro, 73, the cantor at Temple Beth Am in Randolph for 25 years, in 2003 after his assaults came to light.
Shapiro was criminally charged with seven counts of rape in 2003. In September 2005 he pleaded guilty to 14 counts of indecent assault and battery on a mentally retarded person in a deal with Norfolk County prosecutors.
He was sentenced to one year of house arrest and 10 years probation. Shapiro is still on house arrest, Satin said.
IRELAND
Irish Independent
TWO former Irish priests have been accused in the US of stealing millions of dollars in offerings and gifts made to their parish during the past 40 years.
Police in Delray Beach, Florida alleged that they skimmed cash from the offertory and used the money for personal profit.
Former priests John Skehan, from Johnstown, Co Kilkenny and Francis Guinan, from Mounthenry, Birr, Co Offaly were both charged with grand theft over $100,000.
DELRAY BEACH (FL)
The New York Times
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: September 29, 2006
Filed at 12:11 a.m. ET
DELRAY BEACH, Fla. (AP) -- Two Roman Catholic priests stole millions in offerings and gifts made to their parish over several years, authorities said Thursday.
Monsignor John Skehan, who was pastor at St. Vincent Ferrer Catholic Church for four decades, was arrested Wednesday night. Prosecutors say he and the Rev. Francis Guinan stole a total of $8.6 million from the church, using the money to buy property, vacations and other assets, investigators said.
The 79-year-old Skehan was arrested at Palm Beach International Airport as he returned from Ireland and was being held on $400,000 bond on grand theft charges.
Guinan, who succeeded Skehan three years ago, has disappeared and was being sought, authorities said. He is alleged to have stolen an unspecified amount of money to take gambling trips to Las Vegas and the Bahamas.
Guinan had an ''intimate relationship'' with a former bookkeeper at St. Patrick's Catholic Church, where he previously worked, according to a police report. Denis Hamel, the chief financial officer for the Diocese of Palm Beach, told police Guinan had paid the woman's American Express bills and her child's school tuition with funds from St. Vincent's that were not recorded on the church books.
VIRGINIA
The Roanoke Times
By Tonia Moxley
Retired Blacksburg Middle School teacher Jonathan Utin, 64, was arraigned today in Ohio on eight counts of rape of a child and eight counts of sexual imposition of a child. His bond was set at $250,000 in cash. Utin remains in jail in Butler County, Ohio.
This morning, Utin entered a plea of not guilty. The two Ohio attorneys representing Utin filed a motion to suppress statements he made to Ohio police after his arrest in Blacksburg on Sept. 18, Butler County prosecutor Robin Piper said.
Ohio police say Utin confessed to molesting children over at least 30 years. Butler County Judge Matthew Crehan has scheduled a hearing on the motion to surpress for Oct. 23. No other hearings on the case have been set.
The Ohio charges all involve one victim, who allegedly was assaulted both in Ohio and in Blacksburg between 1998 and 2002.
Piper said that "several" Virginia victims had been identified by investigators, but he did not know the number. Blacksburg police are asking that anyone with information about the case come forward. Montgomery County Commonwealth's Attorney Brad Finch said Wednesday that more charges will be filed against Utin after Blacksburg police complete their investigation.
Utin worked in Blacksburg as a middle school teacher, swim club pool manager and for a short time as a Sunday school teacher. After retiring from public schools in 2003, he worked as a substitute teacher in Montgomery County.
HAMILTON (OH)
Middletown Journal
By Lauren Pack
Staff Writer
Friday, September 29, 2006
HAMILTON — A Butler County judge set bond at $250,000 for a retired Virginia middle school teacher accused of molesting a Middletown girl and several other juveniles in his hometown.
John Utin, 64, a well-known and longtime math and science teacher in Blacksburg, Va., near Roanoke, pleaded not guilty Thursday in Butler County Common Pleas Court to eight counts of rape and eight counts of gross sexual imposition.
Utin, who did not speak, entered the courtroom wearing shackles and an orange jumpsuit with stitches on his head. Middletown police said Utin intentionally harmed himself last week in the Middletown City Jail when he jumped off his jail cell toilet onto the corner of his bed, where he struck his head. ...
He was a science and math teacher in the Montgomery County School system from 1968 to 2003, when he retired. Utin also taught Sunday school and was involved in many civic activities.
DELRAY BEACH (FL)
Palm Beach Post
By Stephanie Slater, Lona O'Connor
Thursday, September 28, 2006
DELRAY BEACH — Two former priests at St. Vincent Ferrer Catholic Church in Delray Beach have been accused of misappropriating $8.6 million from the church during the past 40 years.
Delray Beach police alleged that they skimmed cash from the offertory and used the money for personal profit.
Former pastors John Skehan and Francis Guinan were both charged with grand theft over $100,000.
"These guys lived the life they told everyone else not to live — and they lived it on everyone else's dime," police spokesman officer Jeff Messer said. "And one of the seven deadly sins is greed."
Skehan, 79, was arrested Wednesday night at Palm Beach International Airport on a flight from Ireland, where he reportedly owned property.
DARIEN (CT)
The Advocate
By Angela Carella
Assistant City Editor
Published September 29 2006
As they wait for the federal government to conclude its investigation of a priest suspected of stealing money from a Catholic church in Darien, some parishioners want to know more about how the Diocese of Bridgeport handled another aspect of the case.
The priest, Michael Jude Fay, seemed to flaunt his relationship with another man, Philadelphia wedding planner Cliff Fantini, but the bishop has not explained how the diocese deals with priests who violate their vows of celibacy, parishioners say.
Some have written letters to the papal nuncio, the central office of the Roman Catholic Church in the United States, asking for assurance that the diocese addresses such cases, said Betty Czarnecki of New Canaan, a parishioner at St. John the Evangelist in Stamford.
"People are accustomed to sitting back and saying we're helpless, and we're not," Czarnecki said of the scandal at St. John's Church in Darien, where Fay was pastor for 15 years.
NASHVILLE (TN)
Associated Baptist Press
By Hannah Elliott
Published September 27, 2006
NASHVILLE (ABP) -- Members of the coalition that fought the Roman Catholic Church's hierarchy over sexual abuse by priests are asking the Southern Baptist Convention to prevent similar clergy abuse in the denomination's churches.
Members of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, delivered a letter to the SBC Executive Committee at its Nashville headquarters Sept. 26. It asks convention leaders to form an independent review board to receive and investigate charges of clergy abuse in Southern Baptist congregations.
Abuse from clergy is a "systemic" problem, the letter said, and must be addressed by the denomination's main permanent governing body, the Executive Committee. SNAP members also mailed the missive to South Carolina pastor Frank Page, who was elected to the SBC presidency in June.
The letter is the second one they have sent to Southern Baptist leaders.
"Just as [a] family member cannot properly investigate a molestation claim made against a close relative, local church leaders cannot properly investigate a report of clergy abuse made against a much-loved minister," SNAP members wrote. "The usual dynamics dictate that there cannot possibly be a proper inquiry without outside intervention."
MEMPHIS (TN)
NewsChannel 5
MEMPHIS, Tenn. The Catholic Diocese of Memphis is accused in a lawsuit filed today of covering up sexual abuse by a priest in the late 1990s.
The suit was filed on behalf of an unidentified 21-year-old woman identified at Jane Doe Number Two.
It alleges she was abused by a Catholic priest named Edward Nguyen between 1997 and 1999. The diocese said he has been relieved of duty pending an investigation by a church review board.
The suit accuses the diocese of failing to protect the woman from a known child abuser and that it took steps to conceal the abuse. The suit seeks ten (m) million in damages.
MIAMI (FL)
Miami Herald
BY NICOLE WHITE
nwhite@MiamiHerald.com
A former Catholic priest accused of sexual abuse by two former parishioners at a Broward church wants the Archdiocese of Miami to reinstate him, arguing that he was never charged with a crime and that the victims dropped a lawsuit against him.
''The archdiocese unjustly took away my good name, my life of priesthood and carried out my character assassination,'' said the Rev. Jan Malicki, 57, at a news conference in the Miami office of his attorney, Ellis Rubin.
CLAIMS REJECTED
Archdiocese officials rejected Malicki's claims, saying the matter ended last year when the church reached a settlement with the two women.
One woman received more than $500,000 in one of the largest settlements paid in South Florida involving a Catholic clergy sex-abuse case. The other woman received less than $500,000 in the same suit.
SEATTLE (WA)
The Seattle Times
By Janet I. Tu and David Bowermaster
Seattle Times staff reporters
The president of Seattle University said Thursday he has no doubt that a Jesuit priest who taught at the school from about 1950 to 1976 sexually molested young boys.
But the Rev. Stephen Sundborg also said he believed that Seattle University bears no legal responsibility for the actions of Michael Toulouse, because any acts of sexual abuse he carried out occurred outside the scope of his official duties as a teacher at the school.
"This was a professor at Seattle University. We know now that this person abused minors. That's a very hurtful thing," Sundborg said. "As the president of this university, I feel an obligation to acknowledge that." Sundborg said the first he heard of such allegations was in 1993.
At the same time, he said, such allegations do not involve "sexual abuse in his functions as a teacher at Seattle University."
DELRAY BEACH (FL)
Newsday
By Jerome Burdi and Mike Clary
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
September 29, 2006
DELRAY BEACH, Fla. — Two priests have been accused of stealing more than $8.6 million in cash from the collection plates at St. Vincent Ferrer Catholic Church to bankroll secret lives that included steady girlfriends, real estate investments in Florida and Ireland, and gambling junkets to casinos in Las Vegas and the Bahamas.
Retired Msgr. John A. Skehan, 79, was arrested on a grand theft charge Wednesday night at Palm Beach International Airport upon returning from Ireland. He was pastor at St. Vincent for more than 40 years.
"He was very remorseful," Delray Beach Det. Thomas Whatley said. Skehan was in Palm Beach County's jail Thursday in lieu of $400,000 bond.
SEATTLE (WA)
KGW
09/28/2006
Associated Press
Leaders of a Roman Catholic order of priests worried for decades that the Rev. Michael Toulouse was a pedophile, but opted to move him rather than report him to police, an attorney representing several victims said.
Citing internal documents discovered in a U.S. District Court lawsuit against the Society of Jesus in Seattle, attorney Mike Shaffer said the Jesuit priest continued to molest boys after he was transferred from Spokane to Seattle University in 1950.
Shaffer represents several of Toulouse's alleged victims, and told The Spokesman-Review in a story published Thursday that he knows of a dozen men who were sexually abused by the priest, who taught philosophy at Seattle University.
Toulouse died in 1976.
In 1968, he allegedly assaulted a 12-year-old boy, the basis of the lawsuit against the Oregon Province of the Society of Jesus, or Jesuit order of priests.
KANKAKEE (IL)
The Daily Journal
By Jo McCord
jmccord@daily-journal.com
815-432-3685
Former youth minister Timothy Rademacher, 27, of rural Kankakee, was sentenced to 30 years in prison Wednesday for predatory sexual assault and criminal sexual assault against boys.
He pleaded guilty earlier to offenses against two boys, ages 12 and 16, whom he apparently seduced when he was youth minister at Ashkum United Methodist Church.
The sentence was handed down by Judge Gordon Lustfeldt. He said Rademacher's crime was all the worse because it happened on church property, the parsonage, and because he used his authority as a spiritual leader to take advantage of the youths and their families.
Rademacher, dressed in a rumpled suit and having used most of a box of Kleenex during his 30 minutes of tearful apologies to the judge and his victims, hung his head as the sentence was spoken.
IRELAND
Irish Independent
COLM O'Gorman, the founder of the One in Four Victims support group, is to name Pope Benedict XVI as the main churchman responsible for the Vatican's worldwide cover-up of child abusing priests over the past 20 years, writes John Cooney.
Mr O'Gorman, a Dail election candidate for the Progressive Democrats, will make his accusation on a BBC Panorama programme on Sunday.
According to the programme makers, "at the heart of this scandal sits Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI.
UNITED KINGDOM
Hereford Times
THE trial of a vicar accused of downloading child pornography from the internet has been delayed.
At a pre-trial review at Worcester Crown Court on Tuesday both prosecution and defence asked for more time to prepare the case.
James Morrish, aged 41, of The Rectory, Kingstone, denies 11 charges of making indecent photographs of a child between October 18 and 24 last year. He also denies two charges of possessing 69 indecent photographs of children between December 2001 and October last year.
Married Morrish, the priest in charge of Kingstone, Thruxton and Clehonger parishes, is suspended from his clerical duties.
MONTGOMERY (AL)
al.com
9/28/2006, 6:52 a.m. CT
The Associated Press
MONTGOMERY, Ala (AP) — A former minister is headed to federal prison to begin serving a 22-year sentence for producing child pornography.
Leura Canary, the U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Alabama, said 40-year-old Garrett Dykes was sentenced yesterday in Montgomery federal court. He pleaded guilty in May to one charge of filming himself fondling an eight-year-old female in January 2005.
Dykes also awaits an October 27th sentencing hearing in Elmore County after he entered a guilty plead last month to nine counts of sex abuse and four counts of production of obscene materials of people younger than 17.
Elmore County prosecutors said the sex abuse plea involved three victims under the age of 12 who were molested in Dykes' home. Investigators said the abuse was videotaped.
OHIO
The Roanoke Times
By Tim Thornton and Tonia Moxley
381-1669 tonia.moxley@roanoke.com 381-1676
A grand jury in Butler County, Ohio, indicted former Montgomery County teacher Jonathan Utin on 16 felony charges Wednesday -- eight counts of rape of a child under the age of 10 and eight counts of gross sexual imposition.
Prosecutor Robin Piper issued a news release calling Utin "an extraordinary monster" and said the detective work that led to the Ohio charges also "unearthed many, many other incidences which took place in Virginia." ...
About a month ago someone complained to Christ Church interim Rector Elizabeth Morgan about an incident from 30 years ago involving Utin. Morgan declined last week to say what the incident was or to identify who reported it, but she did say it did not happen at Christ Church.
In response to the complaint, Morgan said, she asked all adults in the church who work with children to fill out a self-disclosure form listing any previous crimes or allegations, as the policies of the Episcopal Diocese of Southwest Virginia require. It was unclear if Utin was asked to fill out a form.
The church also began conducting background checks on its adult leaders, Morgan said. Church officials plan to review their response to the 30-year-old complaint to make sure all policies were followed, diocesan spokeswoman Christie Wills said.
PENNSYLVANIA
Philadelphia Inquirer
By Mariana C. Sorensen
One year ago, a Philadelphia grand jury exposed sexual crimes committed by priests against children in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia - crimes that church leaders over decades covered up and enabled.
A year ago, the same grand jury also revealed gaping loopholes in Pennsylvania laws intended to protect children. The jurors found that archdiocese officials had exploited these loopholes to shield predatory priests from prosecution and themselves from liability.
To close the loopholes, the jurors recommended simple amendments to state statutes. Yet, a year later, lawmakers in Harrisburg have passed none of them.
Why are legal reforms necessary?
ANCHORAGE (AK)
Anchorage Daily News
The Associated Press
Published: September 27, 2006
Last Modified: September 27, 2006 at 09:48 AM
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) - The Catholic Archdiocese of Anchorage has put up residential property for sale to cover settlements in priest abuse lawsuits.
The archdiocese must pay about $760,000 to cover its share of settlements in three lawsuits, said Anchorage Archbishop Roger Schwietz. A fourth case is pending.
"It is my hope that takes care of any of the victims who are out there, and hopefully we've helped bring some healing into their lives," Schwietz said Tuesday.
The Anchorage lawsuits recently settled include one against the Rev. Frank Murphy that involved five victims. Another accused a former Kenai priest, the late Rev. Robert Wells, of abusing a girl starting when she was 8 or 9 and continuing for eight years. In the third case, an Anchorage man accused the Rev. Robert Bester of asking him for sexual favors.
OHIO
The Roanoke Times
By Tim Thornton and Tonia Moxley
A grand jury in Butler County, Ohio, indicted retired Blacksburg Middle School teacher Jonathan Utin today on 16 charges -- eight counts of rape of a child under the age of 10 and eight counts of gross sexual imposition. The indictment charges that the crimes were committed between 1998 and 2002.
Each of the rape charges carries a potential life sentence.
Butler County Prosecutor Robin Piper said in a press release that he intends to seek a life sentence in the case.
In announcing the charges, Piper praised the detective work that led to Utin's arrest. That investigation, Piper said in the release, "unearthed many, many other incidences which took place in Virginia." ...
Utin coached gymnastics, led star-gazing trips, taught Sunday school at Christ Episcopal Church and was a manager at the Shawnee Swim Club. The warrant alleges that Utin molested the Ohio girl at the swim club and at his home.
ST. GEORGE (UT)
Deseret Morning News
By Ben Winslow
Deseret Morning News
ST. GEORGE — Captured polygamist leader Warren Jeffs made a brief appearance in 5th District Court here. During the five-minute hearing, the judge set a Nov. 21 preliminary hearing for Jeffs. The judge will also address bail at that time.
During the brief hearing, Jeffs spoke only once, when the judge asked if he would waive his right to have a preliminary hearing within 30 days. "Yes," Jeffs said softly, nodding his head.
Jeffs, 50, was on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list until being arrested during a traffic stop outside Las Vegas last month.
He is charged with two counts of rape as an accomplice, a first-degree felony. Jeffs is accused of forcing a teenage girl into a polygamous marriage with an older man. When the girl objected to the union, the FLDS Church leader allegedly threatened her "salvation."
COLUMBUS (OH)
Toledo Blade
By JIM PROVANCE
BLADE COLUMBUS BUREAU
COLUMBUS - A court magistrate has recommended that a new law addressing old cases of child sex abuse should stand, rejecting arguments that Ohio House Republicans illegally conspired behind closed doors to weaken the measure.
Christine Lippe, a Franklin County Common Pleas Court magistrate, found that a majority of House Judiciary Committee members were at a private, prearranged meeting on March 28 and that Senate Bill 17 was discussed. But she said plaintiffs failed to prove a majority of members participated in those discussions, thus violating Ohio's open meetings law.
She recommended that Judge Patrick Sheeran dismiss a lawsuit filed by three members of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests seeking to overturn that vote as well as the law that resulted.
After returning to the public meeting, the committee's majority killed a one-time, one-year window sought by victim advocates for filing abuse lawsuits for which the statute of limitations had long expired.
IOWA
Bishop Accountability
[Note from BishopAccountability.org: This table was released by the Dubuque archdiocese after SNAP members handed out leaflets at two Ames IA churches where accused priest Robert Marcantonio had worked 1970-75. See Parishioners Get Leaflets on Accused Priest, by Shirley Ragsdale, Des Moines Register (9/18/06). The archdiocese had not included Marcantonio in an earlier version of the list, which was released on 2/21/06 as part of a settlement. On the settlement and abuse in the archdiocese generally, see Sins & Silence, by Mary Nevans-Pederson et al., Telegraph Herald (3/5/06). This web page was created from the Google HTML version of the archdiocese's PDF file of the 2/21/06 table, and then was updated to reflect the changes made by the archdiocese to create their 9/22/06 PDF table.]
IOWA
Bishop Accountability
This is a link to the Gould v. Soens lawsuit filed in Iowa which names Bishop Lawrence D. Soens.
MINNESOTA
Minneapolis Star-Tribune
Pamela Miller
Last update: September 25, 2006 – 9:25 PM
The sisters of a California man who committed suicide in 1971 after allegedly being raped by a visiting professor at St. John's University in Collegeville, Minn., delivered a letter to St. John's Abbey on Monday saying that their brother's case contradicts the institution's claim that it releases the names of all sex offenders.
Rita Prince of Pahrump, Nev., and Teri Ryan of Bremerton, Wash., who were accompanied by three Minnesota advocates for clergy sex-abuse victims, said their brother, Patrick Ryan, 19, hanged himself after dropping out of St. John's in 1970. He told his family that he had been drugged and raped by the Rev. Paul GoPaul, a Trinidad native who taught at St. John's in 1969-70 and died in 1988.
The sisters say their father wrote St. John's a letter explaining why Patrick had dropped out in 1971 and received a reply saying that GoPaul would be denied tenure.
PHILADELPHIA (PA)
Philadelphia Inquirer
By Keith Herbert
Inquirer Staff Writer
A Republican former prosecutor, Montgomery County Court Judge Paul W. Tressler doesn't have a reputation for being soft on criminals.
But in a high-profile case that concluded last week, Tressler gave probation, not jail, to a New York City cantor who pleaded to charges of sexually abusing his nephew for years.
The judge and the District Attorney's Office say the sentence was the culmination of an earlier appellate court ruling, which gutted the prosecutor's case, and the desire of the victim to end the legal ordeal, which had dragged on for years.
"I have no doubt that I followed the law, which is the job of the judge, and not to let emotion become part of the equation," Tressler said yesterday.
Tressler sentenced Cantor Howard Nevison to 12 years of probation but spared him a prison term. Nevison was charged with abusing his nephew during a four-year period in the 1990s at the boy's Main Line home. The assaults occurred when the child was between 3 and 7 years old.
TROY (NY)
Albany Times Union
By TIM O'BRIEN, Staff writer
First published: Tuesday, September 26, 2006
TROY -- Tom Spargo may no longer be an employee of city government, but he is still in the sights of attorney John Aretakis.
Spargo, a former Supreme Court justice forced from the bench in March, was hired by the city in April to a $30,000 a year, part-time job as a deputy corporation counsel.
Aretakis responded to the news by filing a notice of claim against the city in May, threatening to sue and claiming the hiring was illegal because Spargo lived in East Berne, outside the city, and was unfit for the job. ...
When Spargo was on the bench, he issued a preliminary injunction against Aretakis and demonstrators concerned about priest abuse of children, requiring them to stay at least 300 feet from Holy Cross parish in Albany during services and on school days. In his ruling, Spargo called Aretakis' conduct "aggressive and hostile" and "unsettling to decent people."
Aretakis' client in that case, Mark Lyman, co-chairman of Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, unsuccessfully tried to have Spargo removed from the case, arguing he was biased.
FRESNO (CA)
The Fresno Bee
By Doug Hoagland / The Fresno Bee
(Updated Wednesday, September 27, 2006, 4:05 AM)
A Wisconsin family is suing Fresno Catholic Bishop John Steinbock and nearly 180 other American bishops to make them disclose the names and whereabouts of sexually abusive priests.
The family of Daniel O'Connell believes that a Wisconsin priest suspected of child molestation killed O'Connell, who was checking out reports that the priest sexually abused children.
The priest, the Rev. Ryan Erickson, killed himself in 2004, two years after O'Connell was fatally shot.
SPOKANE (WA)
KGW
09/27/2006
Associated Press
A man whose son said he had been sexually abused by a Jesuit priest took a gun to confront the priest at Gonzaga University in 1950 but was stopped, and the priest was moved to Seattle, according to court filings.
The episode is described in sworn statements filed in U.S. District Court in Seattle with a lawsuit against the Oregon Province of the Society of Jesus by people who claim they were abused by the once highly regarded priest, Michael Toulouse, who died in 1976, The Spokesman-Review reported Wednesday.
The Rev. John Whitney, head of the organization which overseas Jesuit priests in much of the Pacific Northwest, told the newspaper he believes molestation did occur but added that he could not find evidence to verify the account of the man with the gun or to show Gonzaga leaders knew Toulouse was a pedophile.
DAVENPORT (IA)
WOI
DAVENPORT, Iowa A court hearing for a former Roman Catholic priest arrested last week for violating his parole was delayed today.
The Reverand Richard Poster was arrested last week for allegedly having contact with children in Davenport, on an area bike path and near a school in Buffalo, Iowa, where he has been living with his parents.
Poster was sentenced to a year in federal prison on possession of child pornography charges in January 2004 and was released on parole with the requirement that he would stay away from children.
IOWA
Des Moines Register
ASSOCIATED PRESS
September 27, 2006
A court hearing for a Roman Catholic priest arrested last week for violating his parole on pornography possession charges has been delayed.
The Rev. Richard Poster, 41, was arrested last week for allegedly having contact with children at the Barnes & Noble book store in Davenport, on an area bike path and in Buffalo, Iowa, where he had been living with his parents, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Don Allegro.
Allegro’s office has alleged that Poster went near the Buffalo Elementary School and masturbated while watching children.
Allegro said Poster indicated at his sentencing on the child pornography charge that he never went near children.
“We now know that’s not true,” Allegro said.
ARLINGTON (TX)
Fort Worth Star-Telegram
By MITCH MITCHELL
STAR-TELEGRAM STAFF WRITER
ARLINGTON -- A former church employee who testified against Terry Hornbuckle during his sexual assault trial filed a federal job discrimination lawsuit against Agape Christian Fellowship on Friday.
In the suit, Lisa Fuller alleges she was sexually harassed by Hornbuckle, the pastor, and wrongfully terminated.
Fuller, who was hired as an executive assistant by Hornbuckle's wife in July 2000, says in the lawsuit that she was fired because she would not lie to a Tarrant County grand jury.
Hornbuckle instructed Fuller to tell members of the grand jury that rumors of him sleeping with women other than his wife, using drugs and misappropriating funds were started by disgruntled employees, according to the lawsuit.
ARLINGTON (TX)
The Dallas Morning News
05:52 PM CDT on Tuesday, September 26, 2006
By JEFF MOSIER / The Dallas Morning News
A former employee of convicted rapist Terry Hornbuckle has filed a federal job discrimination lawsuit against his old church.
The lawsuit said Lisa Fuller was fired after she rejected Mr. Hornbuckle’s unwanted sexual advances and ignored his demands that she lie to a Tarrant County grand jury.
Ms. Fuller worked as the executive assistant to Mr. Hornbuckle and his wife at Agape Christian Fellowship church in Arlington.
Church board president Charles Richardson said he had not spoken to Agape attorneys yet and could not comment.
FIJI
Radio New Zealand
Posted at 2:06pm on 27 Sep 2006
A report from Fiji says two ministers of the Methodist Church, who have now been suspended, sexually abused at least nine secondary school girls.
Radio Legend reports that the divisional police commander eastern, Superintendent Emosi Baleinuku, is carrying out the investigations on Gau and Koro islands where the offences allegedly took place.
All the nine girls are aged between 14 and 16.
Mr Baleinuku is quoted as saying they have yet to interview some other girls who are also believed to have been sexually assaulted by the same two ministers.
DALLAS (TX)
WFAA
By BRETT SHIPP / WFAA-TV
DALLAS — Just days ago, the Dallas Catholic Diocese agreed to settle a lawsuit filed by a young victim of sexual abuse.
She was one of at least 13 girls molested at the Saint Pius X Parish daycare by two male employees.
While both men are behind bars, the victims and their families feel one other culprit has never been held fully accountable — the Church.
The scope of the abuse has been kept quiet for years, and some are calling it the worst case of sexual molestation ever at a Dallas Catholic Church.
From the outside, Saint Pius X Parish appeared to be the model place to entrust one's child.
An established day care in impeccable surroundings governed by the nurturing arms of the Catholic Church.
But lurking inside, there were two day careworkers with questionable credentials and disturbing behavior.
MEXICO
Minneapolis Star-Tribune
By IOAN GRILLO, Associated Press Writer
Associated Press
September 27, 2006
MEXICO CITY (AP) - Police in the Mexican state of Puebla began searching Tuesday for a Roman Catholic priest accused of molesting children in Los Angeles, officials said.
Rev. Nicolas Aguilar, charged in California with 19 felony counts of committing lewd acts on a child, was reportedly was in a small village in Puebla earlier this month.
Puebla Interior Secretary Javier Lopez said detectives and local police were working with church officials to find Aguilar.
"We have sent our agents and the local police to help us find him because we cannot just fold our arms," Lopez told reporters.
The case gained widespread attention last week when U.S. lawyers filed a lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior Court alleging that Cardinal Norberto Rivera of Mexico City conspired with Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony to protect Aguilar.
Both cardinals denied the charges, and Rivera urged Aguilar to turn himself in.
ANCHORAGE (AK)
Anchorage Daily News
By LISA DEMER
Anchorage Daily News
Published: September 27, 2006
Last Modified: September 27, 2006 at 02:45 AM
The archbishop is in a rental, the West Anchorage spread that was his home up for sale. The reason? To pay for settlements in sexual abuse lawsuits.
The Catholic Archdiocese of Anchorage must pay about $760,000 to cover its share of settlements in three lawsuits recently resolved, said Anchorage Archbishop Roger Schwietz. A fourth case is pending.
"It is my hope that takes care of any of the victims who are out there, and hopefully we've helped bring some healing into their lives," Schwietz said Tuesday.
It's not the first property the archdiocese has sold to raise money for sexual abuse settlements. A couple of years ago, it sold some commercial property to compensate the family of Service High School principal Pat Podvin in a private settlement, Schwietz said. Podvin committed suicide in 2004 after publicly disclosing he had been abused as a teenager by an Anchorage priest, the Rev. Frank Murphy.
UNITED STATES
Kansas City Star
By EUGENE CULLEN KENNEDY
Cardinal Joseph Bernardin of Chicago has been dead for almost 10 years. He is, however, far more alive than many church leaders because of his great contributions to church and society, and for his holiness as he accepted the suffering from cancer that led to his death.
He is certainly more alive than Matt Abbott and Randy Engel, two writers whose current attacks on Bernardin are as hilarious and illogical as the late comedian Lou Costello’s lines in the classic “Who’s on first” routine.
Engel claims Bernardin was a leader of a gay combine and makes accusations the way a bad imitator of Julia Child might concoct a souffle. She stirs her ingredients furiously and ends up with egg on her own face.
These two know that you cannot legally libel the dead, so they feel free to make fevered allegations that, like all overheated charges, lose their flavor and their texture as they cool down. Like Abbott with his Costello, they will end up using the last line of the baseball routine when asked what the proof is: “I don’t know.”
UNITED STATES
Renew America
Matt C. Abbott
September 25, 2006
From a recent news release:
Former priest and Loyola Professor Emeritus Eugene C. Kennedy broke the silence surrounding Randy Engel's controversial book The Rite of Sodomy — Homosexuality and the Roman Catholic Church with a scathing commentary for Religion News Service on August 31, 2006.
Engel says that Kennedy's attack on her book, which documents 100 years of intergenerational homosexuality and pederasty in the American Catholic hierarchy, was specifically aimed at her disclosure of the late Joseph Cardinal Bernardin's role in securing a stronghold for the homosexual collective within the Catholic Church in the U.S.
Says Engel:
"In the original version of Kennedy's commentary, 'Abbott more like Costello in attacks on Bernardin,' Kennedy mistakenly gave the impression that columnist Matt C. Abbott is the author of The Rite of Sodomy. This error was later remedied in a revised commentary after RNS confirmed that Abbott's column featured a lengthy excerpt from my book. ...
"The ongoing sex abuse scandal in AmChurch, which includes the systematic cover-up by members of the hierarchy of criminal acts committed by Catholic priests and religious who prey on young boys, takes on new meaning when viewed within the context of a long-existing network of homosexual bishops and cardinals.
NEW YORK
Renew America
Matt C. Abbott
September 26, 2006
The following is the text of an affidavit submitted by Father Robert Hoatson.
OXFORD (MA)
Telegram & Gazette
OXFORD -- The Rev. Joseph Coonan, 58, of 3 Hope Ave., was released on $500 cash bail yesterday in Dudley District Court and granted a continuance to Oct. 5 in connection with a domestic incident Friday night.
Rev. Coonan pleaded not guilty to charges of four counts of assault and battery on a disabled person over 60, two counts each on Mabel Coonan, his mother, and on Patricia A. Loiselle, his sister; intimidation of a witness and assault and battery with a dangerous weapon (a 12-pack of Diet Coke).
GOLDEN (CO)
CBS 4
(AP) GOLDEN, Colo. A Catholic priest will be arraigned Oct. 19 on charges of sexually assaulting a teenage boy he was counseling.
A Jefferson County district judge ruled Monday that a grand jury indictment of 43-year-old Timothy Evans of Loveland showed sufficient probable cause to proceed with the case. Evans is accused of a fondling a 16-year-old between 1995 and 1997 while he was assigned to Spirit of Christ Parish in Arvada.
Evans is free on a $25,000 bond. The court issued a restraining order requiring Evans, who has been barred from performing any priestly duties, to have no contact with the alleged victim.
ST. PAUL (MN)
PR Newswire
ST. PAUL, Minn., Sept. 26 /PRNewswire/ -- Bishop John Kinney, the head of the St. Cloud Catholic Diocese, and Bishop John Nienstedt, head of the New Ulm Catholic Diocese, have been served with and named as defendants in an unprecedented civil child sex abuse lawsuit brought by the family of a murdered Wisconsin man. It was served on local Catholic officials at both dioceses last week by county sheriffs.
SUPERIOR (WI)
PR Newswire
SUPERIOR, Wis., Sept. 26 /PRNewswire/ -- Bishop Raphael Fliss, the head
of the Superior (WI) Catholic Diocese, has been served with and named as a
defendant in an unprecedented civil child sex abuse lawsuit brought by the
family of a murdered Wisconsin man. It was served on local Catholic
officials last week by a county sheriff.
The lawsuit, which seeks no monetary damages, was filed in August in
St. Croix County Circuit Court, Wisconsin (Court File No.06CV581). It asks
a state judge to force America's 194 Catholic bishops to disclose the names
of roughly 5,000 proven, admitted and credibly accused abusive priests in
the US. The suit is being brought by the family of Dan O'Connell of
Wisconsin, who, along with a co-worker, was shot and killed in February
2002 by a suspected pedophile priest who also owned guns and pornography.
DAVENPORT (IA)
Yahoo!
DAVENPORT, Iowa, Sept. 26 /PRNewswire/ -- Bishop William Franklin, the head of the Davenport Catholic Diocese, has been served with and named as a defendant in an unprecedented civil child sex abuse lawsuit brought by the family of a murdered Wisconsin man. It was served on local Catholic officials last week by a county sheriff.
FRESNO (CA)
Yahoo!
FRESNO, Calif., Sept. 26 /PRNewswire/ -- Bishop John Steinbock, the head of the Fresno Catholic Diocese has been served with and named as a defendant in an unprecedented civil child sex abuse lawsuit brought by the family of a murdered Wisconsin man. It was served on local Catholic officials late last week/this week by a county sheriff.
The lawsuit, which seeks no monetary damages, was filed in August in St. Croix County Circuit Court, Wisconsin (Court File No.06CV581) It asks a state judge to force America's 194 Catholic bishops to disclose the names of roughly 5,000 proven, admitted and credibly accused abusive priests in the US. The suit is being brought by the family of Dan O'Connell of Wisconsin, who, along with a co-worker, was shot and killed in February 2002 by a suspected pedophile priest who also owned guns and pornography.
BROOKLYN (NY)
PR Newswire
BROOKLYN, N.Y., Sept. 26 /PRNewswire/ -- Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio, the
head of the Brooklyn Catholic Diocese has been served with and named as a
defendant in an unprecedented civil child sex abuse lawsuit brought by the
family of a murdered Wisconsin man. It was served on local Catholic
officials last week by a county sheriff.
The lawsuit, which seeks no monetary damages, was filed in August in
St. Croix County Circuit Court, Wisconsin (Court File No.06CV581) It asks a
state judge to force America's 194 Catholic bishops to disclose the names
of roughly 5,000 proven, admitted and credibly accused abusive priests in
the US. The suit is being brought by the family of Dan O'Connell of
Wisconsin, who, along with a co-worker, was shot and killed in February
2002 by a suspected pedophile priest who also owned guns and pornography.
JAMAICA
The Jamaica Observer
Vaughn Davis
Tuesday, September 26, 2006
DONOVAN Jones, the 47-year-old former deacon of the Church Dayton Diamond Ridge who is alleged to have supervised the repeated sexual assault of a 13-year-old girl by four youngsters in the back of a van, was yesterday granted bail in the Home Circuit Court, after spending more than two months in police custody.
Appearing before Justice Marva McIntosh, during in-camera proceedings, Jones was granted $400,000 bail and ordered to report to the Half-Way-Tree Police Station on weekdays during the hours of 6:00 am and 6:00 pm. As a special condition of his bail, Jones was ordered by the judge to avoid all contact with the witnesses to be called in the matter as well as the young girl involved.
Jones along with the three youngsters - James Rogers,18, Shamar Morgan, 18 and a 14-year-old juvenile - who are also out on bail, are all charged with indecent assault.
JAMAICA
Jamaica Gleaner
published: Tuesday | September 26, 2006
Barbara Gayle, Staff Reporter
Former church deacon, 46-year-old Donovan Jones, was yesterday granted bail in the sum of $400,000 with sureties, after being in custody since July 6 in connection with the sexual molestation of a 14-year-old girl.
One of the conditions of his bail is that he must report to the Half-Way Tree police station from Mondays to Fridays. He is also not to make contact with the witnesses in the case.
"My decision cannot be based on emotions but must be based on legal principles," Mrs. Justice Marva McIntosh said as she outlined her reasons for granting bail.
COLLEGEVILLE (MN)
Pioneer Press
Associated Press
COLLEGEVILLE, Minn. - Two sisters said Monday their brother killed himself in 1971 because of the trauma of being sexually abused by a visiting professor at St. John's University.
Rita Prince and Terry Ryan delivered a letter to St. John's Abbey on Monday, saying their brother's case contradicts claims by St. John's that it has released the names of all priests and monks alleged to have committed sexual abuse there.
Prince, of Pahrump, Nev., and Ryan, of Bremerton, Wash., said their brother, Patrick Ryan, was a promising student before he was drugged and raped by a priest who taught history at St. John's in the 1969-70 and 1970-71 school years. He was 19 when he hanged himself in February 1971, they said.
They told reporters outside the abbey church that their brother was raped by the Rev. Paul GoPaul, who died in 1988. They said their father wrote St. John's a letter explaining why Patrick Ryan dropped out. They said they received a reply that GoPaul would be denied tenure. They also said their father died in 2004.
WYNNEWOOD (PA)
Catholic Online
By Susan Brinkmann
9/25/2006
Catholic News Service
WYNNEWOOD, Pa. (CNS) – As rain fell on the feast of Our Lady of Sorrows, hundreds of priests from the Philadelphia Archdiocese heard three speakers tell of the evil of clergy sex abuse that they or their family members endured.
"In the past year, we all have read the stories of the victims – but it is extremely important to hear their stories firsthand, so that we may see the human face and hear the human voice, rather than simply read words on a printed page," said Philadelphia Cardinal Justin Rigali.
The cardinal organized the Sept. 15 event at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in Wynnewood to acquaint priests with the human dramas behind the clergy sex abuse crisis. The three speakers included two victims and the mother of two other victims. The impact of their stories about victimization by priests serving in the archdiocese was profound and disturbing.
Grace, a mother of two victims, said that she was raised in a devout Catholic home and was taught "that clergy were men of God. But two of them were not."
KENTUCKY
The Cincinnati Post
Post staff report
A 53-year-old Pendleton County judge has been appointed to oversee the multimillion-dollar settlement of a class-action lawsuit alleging 50 years of sexual abuse in the Covington Diocese.
Circuit Judge Robert W. McGinnis steps in as the third judge on the case - the nation's first class-action involving priests' sexual misconduct. He replaces Senior Judge John Potter, who announced Sept. 13 that he had completed all the hours allowed on the case under the state's senior judge program.
That program allows Potter to collect a pension equal to his salary when he retired as a judge if he serves an average of 120 days annually for up to five years. Potter was appointed to oversee the case in December 2003, after Boone Circuit Judge Jay Bamberger retired.
Chief Justice Joseph Lambert appointed McGinnis late last week.
DUDLEY (MA)
WHDH
DUDLEY, Mass. -- A Worcester minister is arrested again.
It is the second time he's facing charges of assaulting his mother and disabled sister.
Police arrested Reverend Joseph Coonan, 58, on Sunday night.
A neighbor tipped police about the alleged attack, saying that Coonan's mother had called her in tears. Officials say alcohol was involved.
Earlier this year, Coonan was charged with similar crimes against his mother and sister, but those were dropped.
Coonan has been on administrative leave from the church since 2002 when a sexual misconduct abuse claim was raised against him.
COLLEGEVILLE (MN)
Minnesota Public Radio
Collegeville, Minn. — Rita Prince and Terry Ryan stood beneath the massive concrete bell tower at St. John's University in Collegeville, clutching a picture of their brother. In the 1960s-era photo, Patrick Ryan is dressed smartly in a black suit, his reddish-brown hair swept to the side.
Terry Ryan said her brother was a promising student. But then, she said, Patrick Ryan was sexually abused by a priest, who was also a history professor, in the 1970s.
Meeting with a St. John's official"He was a straight-A student, he was a good athlete, he had much, much promise. And I believe he was an absolute victim when he came here to this school. He had no family in the area. He probably became a victim to somebody who was looking for someone just like him," Ryan said.
Ryan alleges her brother was drugged and raped by the priest in the fall of 1970. Her brother left SJU shortly after. Rita Prince said he was never the same, and fell into deep depression.
"My brother, Patrick Ryan, never saw his 20th birthday. He was so distraught he hung himself in February of 1971," Prince said.