Crimes against Kids: High-Profile Verdicts Turn the Tide on Sexual Abuse

The Post-Standard
July 3, 2012

http://blog.syracuse.com/opinion/2012/07/crimes_against_kids_high-profi.html

FORMER PENN State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky leaves court June 22 after a jury found him guilty of 45 counts of sexually abusing boys.

Guilty verdicts June 22 in two high-profile sex-abuse cases in Pennsylvania offer an important turning point for victims of similar crimes.

A jury convicted former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky of 45 counts of sexually abusing 10 boys. During the two-week trial, eight men graphically described repeated assaults by Sandusky at Penn State, in hotel rooms and in the basement of Sandusky's home. Sandusky, 68, was arrested in November; he had been investigated by campus police for possible sexual crimes against children as far back as 1998. He's likely to spend the rest of his life in prison.

The same day that Sandusky was led from a courtroom in handcuffs, a jury convicted Monsignor William J. Lynn of endangering children by shielding and reassigning priests accused of molesting children. As an aide to the late Philadelphia's Catholic Cardinal Anthony J. Bevilacqua, Lynn was in charge of recommending priest assignments and investigating complaints of abuse from 1992 to 2004.

Lynn, 61, was arrested in February 2011, and is the first high-ranking U.S. diocesan official indicted on criminal charges related to the sexual abuse scandal. He is likely to spend up to seven years in prison. (He was acquitted on a second charge of endangering and one of conspiracy.)

"This monumental case will change the way business is done in many institutions," Philadelphia District Attorney R. Seth Williams said after the Lynn verdict.

The Sandusky and Lynn cases share important elements. Both involve unthinkable sexual abuse of children. The victims' stories were long ignored or denied. And both cases occurred at institutions with insular cultures highly motivated to protect their own reputations, even at the cost of children's safety.

We hope Williams is right, and that the verdicts will set the stage for more transparency in handling accusations of misconduct or abuse, and more compassion in responding to accusations from vulnerable people. We also renew our support for expanding the list of people mandated to report suspected child sexual abuse to legal authorities.

A proposed New York state law would add college coaches, professors, graduate assistants and administrators to the list of people required to report suspected abuse or face a criminal charge. That bill got stuck in committee, but its sponsor, Assemblyman Jim Tedisco, R,C,I-Schenectady-Saratoga, said this week he'll push it again next session.

"It's a no-brainer to have another set of eyes and ears out there," Tedisco said.

We also support making clergy mandated reporters, a move Roman Catholic officials have resisted since the clergy abuse scandal erupted in 2002. But that change is getting a welcome boost from a scandal in an ultra-Orthodox Jewish congregation in Brooklyn. The district attorney there is struggling to address child molestation charges in a tradition where rabbis forbid people to take accusations outside the community.

Unfortunately, broadening the list of mandated reporters will not eliminate sexual abuse of children. But such a legal change would make it absolutely clear that excuses like "it was the cardinal's decision" or "I told Joe Paterno" just don't cut it. And once the case in the hands of outside authorities, it has a much better chance of ending up in a courtroom — where last week justice was dispensed to victims of Sandusky and the Philadelphia clergy .