CALIFORNIA
Opposing Views
By Jonathan Wolfe, Fri, January 31, 2014
A single mother from San Francisco, California has come forward alleging sexual abuse by a trustee of her local Catholic church. The woman, Jhona Matthews, says the abuse included spankings with a paddle and forced sexual activities.
Matthews says the activities occurred over the course of a year in which she worked as a secretary at the church. The abuse was doled out by Bill McLaughlin, her supervisor at the church, and was done with the threat that she would be fired if she didn’t comply.
“Many of these sex acts and demands and the spankings occurred inside the shrine premises, in the sacristy of the shrine,” attorney Sandra Ribera said.
In the lawsuit filed by Matthews, she says the spankings given to her were done using paddle given to McLaughlin by a priest at the church. The paddle, Ribera said, has “the inscription ‘BNO,’ which stands for ‘boys night out.’ And it says, ‘To Bill M. from Father T.’”
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