ABUSE TRACKER

FLORIDA
NBC 2

SANIBEL –
The priest of a Sanibel church is being investigated by the Lee County Sheriff’s Office, according to the Diocese of Venice. He faces allegations of financially exploiting a churchgoer who was suffering from dementia.

The criminal investigation is focused on Father Christopher Senk of St. Isabel Catholic Church at the corner of Sanibel-Captiva and Rabbit Roads.

The Diocese of Venice says that Father Senk is on paid administrative leave while the allegations are reviewed.

The criminal investigation report was referred to the Florida State Attorney.

Documents show that Father Senk denies the allegations.

The following was a press released distributed by the Diocese of Venice in Florida’s Communications Department.

Venice, Fla. – Regrettably, it must be reported that the Diocese of Venice has been informed that an investigation has been carried out by the Lee County Sherriff’s Office. The Criminal Investigation Report was referred to the Florida State Attorney. The focus of the investigation was Father Christopher Senk, who has been serving as Pastor of St. Isabel Parish in Sanibel and who it is alleged to have financially exploited an elderly parishioner whom he knew as suffering from dementia. Father has denied these allegations.

If true, the alleged actions of Father Senk require a pastoral response in light of the Diocesan Code of Pastoral Conduct. Pope Francis reminds all, that priests are called to live simply and to identify with the poor, and to avoid seeking personal financial gain. It is necessary to ensure that priests who serve in the name of the Church act with compassion and respect, especially in the care of elderly and vulnerable parishioners.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

FLORIDA
Fox 4

SANIBEL, Fla. — An investigation has been carried out by the Lee County Sheriffs’ Office for a Sanibel priest who allegedly exploited an elderly parishioner, according to the Diocese of Venice.

Officials believe Father Christopher Senk took advantage of his position to financially exploit the parishioner whom he new was suffering from dementia. Father has denied these allegations.

The Diocese of Venice placed Father Senk on paid administrative leave while the allegations are reviewed.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

CHILE
Bio Bio

[During a last visit in the city of Osorno, former First Lady Marta Larraechea questioned the presence of the current bishop of the Diocese of Osorno, Juan Barros, saying his presence shows a lack of respect for the community by the Catholic church and shows a lack of humility on the part of the bishop to remain in the area. Also former president Eduardo Frei addressed the issue stating it was a bad sign that the Vatican failed to turn over to the Chilean court information on the bishop.]

Publicado por
Felipe Delgado

Durante su última visita en la ciudad de Osorno, tal como hiciera en su anterior estadía en la zona, la exprimera dama Marta Larraechea cuestionó la presencia del actual obispo de la Diócesis de Osorno, Juan Barros, señalando que es una falta de respeto a la comunidad por parte de la iglesia católica, tanto como una falta de humildad de su parte mantenerse a la cabeza de la iglesia en la zona.

Tal como señaló, el actual obispo debería tener la humildad de dar un paso al lado, por no representar a toda su comunidad, manteniéndose en una ciudad donde no se le quiere y se le critica, por lo que lo más sano sería que escuchara la voz de su comunidad.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

PENNSYLVANIA
WPXI

[with video]

PITTSBURGH – The Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh has begun airing plans to merge parishes, citing dwindling numbers of members and priests.

The first meetings with local parishioners started Monday and will occur in all 192 parishes over the next eight weeks.

Church officials say the number of Catholics in the diocese has fallen from 914,000 in 1980 to 632,000 last year. The number of those attending Sunday Mass has also fallen from nearly 247,000 in 2000 to fewer than 150,000 last year. The number of active priests has decreased from 338 to 225 over that same 15-year period and is projected to be just 112 by the year 2025.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

NEW JERSEY
Road to Recovery

Leaders of the Salesian Priests and Brothers have refused to settle a childhood sexual abuse claim against one of their priests, Fr. Joseph Maffei, SDB, causing the victim, who was abused in Indiana, to be re-victimized. The victim is being denied justice.

What
A press conference and demonstration alerting the media, Catholics, and general public about the refusal of the Salesian Priests and Brothers, based in New Rochelle, New York, to help settle a claim of sexual abuse of a child by a member of the Salesians of Don Bosco religious order, Fr. Joseph Maffei, SDB.

When
Saturday, October 29, 2016, from 11:00 am until 1:00 pm before kickoff of the Don Bosco/ Bergen Catholic football game

Sunday, October 30, 2016, from 11:30 am until 1:30 pm at the Open House of Don Bosco Prep School

Where
Saturday, October 29, 2016 – on the public sidewalk across the entrance to the Bergen Catholic High School football stadium, 1040 Oradell Avenue, Oradell, NJ 07649

Sunday, October 30, 2016 – on the public sidewalk across from the main entrance of Don Bosco Prep School, 492 North Franklin Turnpike, Ramsey, NJ 07446

Who
Members of Road to Recovery, Inc., a non-profit charity based in New Jersey that assists victims of sexual abuse and their families, including its co-founder and President, Robert M. Hoatson, Ph.D.

Why
The Salesian Priests and Brothers of Don Bosco, based in New Rochelle, New York, refuse to settle the claim of a man who was sexually abused in Indiana as a child by a serial pedophile Salesian priest and help him heal. They have told the man to “take a hike.” The man was sexually abused as a minor child by a serial pedophile priest, Fr. Joseph Maffei, SDB, at St. Dominic Savio Juniorate in Cedar Lake, Indiana. The victim met with leaders of the Salesian religious order who coldly and callously informed him that they will not help him heal. Subsequently, Fr. Timothy Zak, SDB, who is in charge of sexual abuse allegations for the Don Bosco Salesian priests and brothers, told demonstrators at an Orange, NJ, Catholic Church (Our Lady of the Valley) that the Indiana victim’s case was being settled. It has not been settled yet.

Contacts
Robert M. Hoatson, Ph.D., Road to Recovery, Inc., Livingston, NJ – 862-368-2800

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

CONNECTICUT
New Haven Independent

by PAUL BASS | Oct 28, 2016

A second former student of a prominent New Haven rabbi has asserted under oath that the rabbi “sexually molested” him “many dozens of times” then continued the sexual relationship when he returned to the rabbi’s school to work as an adult.

The allegations emerged in a pretrial deposition taken in the case of Eliyahu Mirlis v. Rabbi Daniel Greer, et al.

Mirlis’s attorney filed that lawsuit in U.S. District Court on May 3. It charged that Greer repeatedly raped him for three years while he was a student at the Yeshiva of New Haven, one of two Orthodox Jewish schools Greer ran inside the former Roger Sherman School at Elm and Norton streets in New Haven’s Edgewood neighborhood. (Read a detailed account of that suit here.)

Greer — a prominent figure who revived a declining neighborhood and has publicly crusaded against gay rights, prostitution, and coed university dorms — has repeatedly denied the allegations through his attorney. Greer is 75 years old; he was in his 60s at the time of the alleged abuse.

The new set of allegations emerged in a July 25 deposition of a key witness in that case, a close family friend of Greer’s who grew up attending Greer’s schools and then returned as an adult to serve as a teacher and administrator. He is now 41 years old.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

UNITED KINGDOM
Daily Mail

By REBECCA CAMBER and EMILY KENT SMITH FOR DAILY MAIL
PUBLISHED: 19:07 EST, 28 October 2016 | UPDATED: 19:51 EST, 28 October 2016

The chairman of the beleaguered child abuse inquiry faced explosive new claims of a cover-up last night after it emerged that its top lawyer had been accused of sexual assault.

Ben Emmerson QC, lead counsel to the inquiry, yesterday rebutted claims that he groped a female colleague in a lift at the headquarters of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse.

The allegations emerged when BBC Newsnight claimed that Mr Emmerson, the most senior lawyer in the country’s biggest public inquiry, had been allowed to quit after the accusations.

The inquiry said yesterday that neither its chairman, Professor Alexis Jay, her panel nor any official were aware of any complaint of sexual assault before Mr Emmerson resigned.

But last night a source close to the inquiry said the alleged victim had made a ‘disclosure’ to another member of the inquiry that was passed to Professor Jay and the panel before Mr Emmerson’s departure.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

NEVADA
Las Vegas Review-Journal

By DAVID FERRARA
LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL

A Mormon church official said Friday that a Henderson man facing lewdness, child pornography and kidnapping charges was not acting in his role as a home teacher when the alleged crimes occurred.

In announcing an indictment earlier this week, a prosecutor described 43-year-old Martin Gillen as a “home school teacher” with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

On Friday, a spokesman for the church clarified Gillen’s role and said the man had “no calling in the congregation.”

Gillen is accused of fondling a 10-year-old girl in August at her home, according to Chief Deputy District Attorney Dena Rinetti.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

MINNESOTA
Pioneer Press

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
PUBLISHED: October 28, 2016

PINE CITY, Minn. — The leader of an isolated religious sect in Minnesota was sentenced Friday to 30 years in prison, weeks after he pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting two teenage girls who were members of his community.

Victor Barnard, 55, agreed to the 30-year sentence as part of his plea deal earlier this month in Pine County.

Barnard was the longtime leader of the River Road Fellowship near Finlayson, about 90 miles north of Minneapolis-St. Paul.

In 2012, two women came forward and told authorities that Barnard began assaulting them when they were as young as 12 and 13. The women said they were among about 10 girls and young women who were chosen to live in a camp apart from their families as part of Barnard’s “Maidens Group.”

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

MINNESOTA
KARE

PINE CITY, Minn. – A religious sect leader who was charged with sexually abusing girls at his secluded compound has been sentenced to 30 years.

Victor Barnard, 55, was stoic as his official sentence was announced.

He told the court he is asking God to heal him.

“God is good, his word is faithful … and I have not walked in his goodness,” Barnard said, after his sentencing.

Earlier this month, he pleaded guilty to two counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct and under terms of that deal, agreed to serve 30 years. He will get credit for roughly two years that he’s already served.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

MINNESOTA
New York Magazine

By Catie L’Heureux

Of all the abuse, manipulation, and horrifying crimes that religious cult leader Victor Barnard committed, no one could have predicted his youngest victim would wield the most damning evidence against him. In court documents, her name is C. When she was 13, she started drawing a tiny X on her calendar every day Barnard raped her.

Wedged into corners of her calendar’s white boxes, alongside notes about music practice or play dates with friends, the ink charted what would become the driving force behind 59 counts of sexual assault that C and her friend B, another victim, ultimately filed against Barnard. Years after he first abused them, the two women spoke directly to Barnard in court on Friday.

Barnard, now 55, rose to power in the 1990s as the charismatic leader of the River Road Fellowship, an offshoot Christian sect he founded and later transformed into a cult. He convinced 150 people to sell their homes and move to Shepherd’s Camp, an isolated 85-acre campground in Finlayson, Minnesota. Life was simple and entirely self-sustaining: Families sewed their own clothing, planted gardens, and traded goods and services like butchering, cabinet-building, and soap-making. There was no internet, no cell phones.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

MINNESOTA
Star Tribune

By Pam Louwagie Star Tribune OCTOBER 28, 2016

PINE CITY, MINN. – Finally facing her abuser in court, Lindsay Tornambe sat at a prosecutor’s table Friday, her voice shaking, and recounted how feared religious leader Victor Barnard had sexually assaulted her starting at age 13, and how it continues to haunt her.

“I felt so alone, because I was,” she said, fighting tears as she described how she didn’t have anyone to turn to in the cloistered River Road Fellowship community Barnard once led in east central Minnesota.

She’s had PTSD, she said. Nightmares. Trust issues. Feelings of abandonment. Suicidal thoughts. Anxiety.

When she found the strength to tell law enforcement about nine years of abuse at Barnard’s hands, prompting authorities to go on a manhunt for him all the way to Brazil, she felt she finally had some power over him, she said.

“I used to see Victor as this powerful and monstrously strong man,” Tornambe said. “I am his downfall. … He cannot break me. … He is the one that is weak. He will be known all over the world as a sexual predator.”

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

INDIA
NDTV

Kerala | Written by Sneha Mary Koshy | Updated: October 29, 2016

ERNAKULAM: A teacher who taught at the Sunday school for a church in Kerala’s Ernakulam has been arrested by the police for sexually abusing a student.

The teacher in his early 30s, Suresh, allegedly tried forcing himself onto a 16-year-old boy.

“The teacher has been charged under the Juvenile Justice Act and for forcing the teenager into homosexuality,” police told NDTV.

The student, according to police, has alleged that the teacher made physical advances twice since December 2015, before finally forcing himself on the student this month.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

INDIA
FitnHit

A School Teacher arrested in Kerala for being accused of Sexual abuse. A 56-year-old school teacher, Suresh was held and remanded in the judicial custody on the allegation of sexually abusing a teenage boy repeatedly. As said by the Police on Saturday, the accused was arrested on Friday.

Suresh, who is a school teacher used to take classes for students at a Sunday school that is attached to a Syrian Jacobite Church near Kothamangalam that is about 50 km away from Kochi. The said victim and the school teacher Suresh are neighbors.

He has been said to have constantly abused this 16-year-old boy, sexually, since 2015 after threatening him. The Police also mentioned that the victim also used to join his classes at the Sunday school. After recognizing the incident, the teacher has been charged under IPC Section 377 (Unnatural offenses) and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO Act).

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

KENYA
The Star

Oct. 29, 2016
By ALPHONCE MUNG’AHU

A female congregant has appealed to her church headquarters for protection after her home church allegedly failed to act on her complaint of alleged sexual harassment by a pastor.

Peris Ondara filed an affidavit accusing pastor Paul Owuor of the Seventh Day Adventist Church, Nairobi East, of sexually harassing her. The complainant who also works as a teacher at a school sponsored by the church, at which the pastor is also based, said efforts to get support from church elders has been unsuccessful.

But when contacted, Owuor denied the allegations, saying “the woman is out to taint my image”. He also denied allegations that she reported the matter to the church’s management. Ondara alleged Owuor summoned her to his office at around 8.30am on September 30. “He told me I am beautiful, young and good looking and he would be happy to go out with me,” she said. Ondara said Owuor said she would only get allowances, a salary increment and permanent employment if she gave in.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

CANADA
Toronto Star

By JACQUES GALLANT
Staff Reporter
Fri., Oct. 28, 2016

One of Paul Melnichuk’s two alleged sexual assault victims testified Friday that it felt like a “strong animal” had grabbed her the day she and the popular pastor were walking alone in a church hallway.

“You don’t even have a second to react or think,” the woman, whose name is covered by a publication ban, testified in a Finch Ave. courtroom, right next door to Melnichuk’s Prayer Palace, the massive evangelical church he founded decades ago and also the scene of the alleged crime.

The flamboyant 83-year-old pastor pleaded not guilty on the first day of his trial Thursday to sexually assaulting the woman and her daughter, who were once members of the congregation.

The woman said she was walking to Melnichuk’s left one day in 2014 when she testified he suddenly grabbed her shoulders, pressed his genitals up against her buttocks and made a shaking motion with his hips. She said she then jumped and turned around and he did the same.

The woman demonstrated all of this in court on her Spanish interpreter.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

MASSACHUSETTS
Boston Globe

By Bella English OCTOBER 28, 2016

It has been 12 years — and 5 days, to be exact — since St. Frances X. Cabrini church in Scituate was declared closed by the Archdiocese of Boston, as part of a sweeping reconfiguration process necessitated by dwindling attendance and collections, a shortage of priests, and a multimillion-dollar settlement with victims of the priest sexual abuse scandal.

But until last Memorial Day, a group of parishioners refused to leave the premises, staging a 24/7 vigil that finally ended when the Supreme Court declined to hear the case between them and the archdiocese. On May 30, the day after a Mass that drew nearly 500, the Friends of St. Frances vacated the church property near the ocean — 30 acres appraised by the town of Scituate at $4.2 million.

Friends of St. Frances X. Cabrini are holding Mass at the Satuit Lodge of Freemasons in Scituate.

It didn’t take long for the Friends, led by Maryellen and Jon Rogers, to establish a new church, which is meeting at the Satuit Lodge of Freemasons in Scituate, while they plan a capital campaign for their own church building.

Here’s how Maryellen Rogers describes it: “We are an ecumenical Catholic church, we are still valid practicing Catholics, part of the universal Catholic Church, not the Roman Catholic Church. So if you join our church community, you would see a welcoming Catholic experience but you would not be supporting the Roman Catholic Church or the Archdiocese of Boston.”

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

LOUISIANA
The Advocate

BY JOE GYAN JR. | JGYAN@THEADVOCATE.COM OCT 28, 2016

A priest has no duty to report confidential information heard during a sacramental confession, the Louisiana Supreme Court ruled Friday in a bid to clear up what it called the “widespread confusion” caused by its decision two years ago in a long-running case involving the Roman Catholic Diocese of Baton Rouge.

The diocese had warned after the 2014 ruling that the sanctity of the confessional was under attack by the ruling the church said might force a priest to reveal in court what was privately told to him.

The case involves a young woman who claims she told a Baton Rouge-area Catholic priest that a longtime church parishioner was sexually abusing her when she was 14 but the priest did nothing to stop or report the alleged abuse.

A legal battle over whether a Louisiana priest should have reported a teenager’s claims of s…
In a 2014 ruling in the case that resuscitated Rebecca Mayeux’s lawsuit against the Baton Rouge Diocese and the Rev. Jeff Bayhi, the state Supreme Court said a dispute remained “concerning whether the communications between the child and the priest were confessions per se and whether the priest obtained knowledge outside the confessional that would trigger his duty to report” sexual abuse allegations.

The Supreme Court on Friday conceded that it never “conclusively determined” whether a priest, in administering sacramental confession, is a mandatory reporter of child abuse under provisions of the Louisiana Children’s Code. Such a determination would make priests subject to the mandatory duty to report under the code.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

PENNSYLVANIA
Times-Tribune

BY DAVID SINGLETON / PUBLISHED: OCTOBER 29, 2016

An advocacy group for clergy abuse victims is urging the Diocese of Scranton to reach out to individuals who may know about other potential crimes committed by a former priest who is up for parole after molesting a boy a decade ago in Wayne County.

The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests said it opposes the release of Steven Wolpert, who is serving a nine- to 18-year sentence at the State Correctional Institution at Camp Hill for involuntary deviate sexual intercourse with a child under 13.

“Kids will be safest if Wolpert serves his entire sentence of 18 years behind bars,” SNAP director David Clohessy said in a statement.

Mr. Wolpert, 63, who served as a priest in Brooklyn, New York, from 1981 to 1987, pleaded guilty in Wayne County Court in March 2008, to charges he abused an 8-year-old boy in Hawley in 2006 and 2007. He was sentenced three months later.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

UNITED STATES
ABC News

By MICHAEL MELIA AND NICOLE WINFIELD, ASSOCIATED PRESS

HARTFORD, Conn. — Oct 28, 2016

A former top official for the scandal-plagued Legion of Christ sexually abused a teenage boy in the early 1990s, according to a lawsuit filed this week.

The lawsuit, which seeks unspecified damages, accuses a priest who served as second-in-command to a man who founded the conservative religious order and molested his own seminarians. It’s believed to include the first such accusation against the Rev. Luis Garza, who’s believed to be living in the Philippines.

A Legion of Christ spokesman said Garza denies the allegations. Garza “categorially denies his involvement in this or any other abuse and has said he will cooperate fully in any inquiry regarding this matter,” spokesman Jim Fair said.

The plaintiff, whose name was not made public, says he was abused by Garza; the order’s founder, the late Rev. Marcial Maciel; and a third priest at a Legion boarding school in Mexico beginning in 1990 or 1991, when he was about 13 or 14 years old.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

WISCONSIN
Green Bay Press-Gazette

Paul Srubas, USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin October 28, 2016

GREEN BAY – A retired Catholic priest will spend four months in jail for exposing himself multiple times to a 16-year-old boy.

Rev. Richard L. Thomas, 79, of Allouez, will also spend three years on probation, Brown County Circuit Judge Timothy Hinkfuss ordered Friday.

Hinkfuss rejected a defense plea for probation without jail time.

“You should be held to a higher standard because of your vocation,” Hinkfuss told him, adding that these latest charges weren’t Thomas’s “first time around.”

Assistant District Attorney Bryant Dorsey said Thomas had been arrested for indecent exposure in 1990 and again in 1993, when he was convicted.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

WISCONSIN
Wisconsin Public Radio

OCTOBER 28, 2016 BY WRN CONTRIBUTOR

A retired Catholic priest will spend about four months in jail for exposing himself to a teenage boy in the Green Bay suburb of Allouez. Seventy-eight-year-old Richard Thomas was sentenced to 120 days behind bars, during a hearing in Brown County court Friday morning.

Thomas was living in a home for retired priests in March, when he was accused of flashing the teen four times, while the boy was walking to school.

Thomas entered no contest pleas to two felony counts of exposing himself to a child, last month. He started seeking treatment earlier this year. Thomas will also spend three years on probation, after he’s released from jail.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

LOUISIANA
Houston Chronicle

Kevin Mcgill, Associated Press Friday, October 28, 2016

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Louisiana’s Supreme Court has ruled that a priest is not required by law to notify authorities after hearing evidence of abuse from a child making a religious confession.

Friday’s ruling deals with a section of Louisiana law requiring health workers, teachers, clergy and others to report evidence of child abuse to authorities. A lower court held the law unconstitutional because it would force priests to violate their religious beliefs by reporting information from confessions.

But the Supreme Court ruling analyzed the law and concluded that religious leaders are exempt from the law when they hear evidence of child abuse in a “sacramental confession.”

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

MINNESOTA
Pioneer Press

By BOB SHAW | bshaw@pioneerpress.com
PUBLISHED: October 27, 2016

A pastor of a Cottage Grove church has been arrested on suspicion of possessing child pornography.

William Leonard Helker, 47, was arrested by Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension agents on Wednesday. Helker is an associate pastor of All Saints Lutheran Church in Cottage Grove, according to the ELCA church’s website.

He was arrested at his home in Pine City, Minn., by the Bureau’s Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force. The officers booked him into the Pine County Jail.

The agents executed search warrants at Helker’s home and at the church, with help from Homeland Security Investigations, which is part of the federal Department of Homeland Security. Deputies of the Pine County sheriff’s office also helped with the search warrants.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

MINNESOTA
KSTP

October 27, 2016

Authorities have arrested a 47-year-old pastor after searching his Pine City home and a Cottage Grove church during a child pornography investigation.

The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension says William Leonard Helker was arrested Wednesday at his home on the 15000 block of Copper Canyon Road in Pine City.

The arrest came after BCA agents with the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force executed search warrants on October 26, at Helker’s home and All Saints Lutheran Church in Cottage Grove, where Helker is a pastor.

Helker was arrested without incident and was booked into the Pine County Jail on suspicion of possessing pornography involving minors, the BCA said.

Members of the church say they found out about the arrest via email Wednesday night.

They say Helker worked with kids conducting first communion and confirmation classes, but worked with adults as well.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

MINNESOTA
KARE

COTTAGE GROVE, Minn. – A local pastor has been charged after authorities say they found thousands of pornographic images and videos involving children on his computer and phone.

William Leonard Helker, 47, was arrested Thursday on suspicion of possessing child pornography after agents from the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) executed a search warrant at his trailer in Pine City. The search warrant was executed after the BCA received a number of cybertips reported by Facebook and Instagram that Helker was exchanging images of nude minor females with a man in Helsinki, Finland.

When agents appeared at his home Helker reportedly admitted to possessing thousands of pornographic images and videos on his laptop and on his phone. He said that all of the subjects were under the age of 18, and were photographed engaged in sex acts or with their genitals exposed.

Until late last week, Helker was an associate pastor at All Saints Lutheran Church in Cottage Grove. His electronic footprints indicate that some of the pornographic images were accessed while at church.

The criminal complaint also says that Helker told a female agent that he had taken numerous photos of innocent children from All Saints Lutheran Church, and then photoshopped the children’s faces onto pornographic images to use for his sexual gratification.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

MINNESOTA
CBS Minnesota

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) – Officials say a pastor at a south metro church was arrested Wednesday on suspicion of possessing child porn.

The Bureau of Criminal Apprehension says 47-year-old William Leonard Helker, of Pine City, was taken into custody without incident at his home.

Agents with the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force made the arrest following a search of Helker’s home and All Saints Lutheran Church in Cottage Grove, where he serves as pastor.

Helker was booked into the Pine County Jail, pending formal charges.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

MINNESOTA
Fox 9

By: Ashley Cole
POSTED:OCT 27 2016

PINE CITY, Minn. (KMSP) – A 47-year-old pastor has been arrested during a child pornography investigation.

According to the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, William Helker was arrested Wednesday at his home in Pine City after authorities searched the home and a Cottage Grove church during a child pornography investigation.

Helker was arrested after Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force executed search warrants at his home and All Saints Lutheran Church in Cottage Grove. He was booked into the Pine County Jail on suspicion of possessing pornography involving minors.

Helker is listed as an associate pastor on the All Saints Lutheran Church website.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

MINNESOTA
South Washington County Bulletin

By Scott Wente on Oct 27, 2016

William Leonard Helker, a pastor at All Saints Lutheran Church in Cottage Grove, was arrested on suspicion of possessing child pornography.

The Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension announced Thursday that Helker was arrested Wednesday at his home in Pine City and booked at the Pine County jail. Formal criminal charges are pending, according to the BCA.

A jail spokeswoman said Helker was being held without bail; a court date had not been set.

BCA agents with the Internet Crimes AGainst Children Task Force made the arrest after executing search warrants at Helker’s home and at All Saints Lutheran, on Belden Boulevard in Cottage Grove. The warrants were executed with assistance from Homeland Security Investigations and the Pine County Sheriff’s Office, according to the BCA.

Helker is listed as an associate pastor on the All Saints website. The church had no comment Thursday but posted a statement on its website that said Helker was placed on administrative leave.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

MINNESOTA
Star Tribune

By Liz Sawyer Star Tribune OCTOBER 27, 2016

A Twin Cities pastor has been arrested on suspicion of possessing child pornography after authorities raided his home and office Wednesday, police said.

The 47-year-old Pine City man, who works as an associate pastor at All Saints Lutheran Church in Cottage Grove, was jailed Wednesday on felony probable cause child pornography charges.

The Star Tribune typically does not name suspects who have yet to be charged.

Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension agents, along with the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, searched the man’s church after obtaining a warrant. He was arrested without incident later at his home, about 80 miles north of the church.

A statement on the church’s website acknowledged the pastor’s arrest and said he was placed on administrative leave Wednesday. “We are concerned and ask prayers for all affected and will cooperate fully with law enforcement,” the message reads. “We are committed to providing safe spaces for all children and youth at All Saints and in the community.”

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

WISCONSIN
WBAY

[with video]

By Rhonda Roberts
Published: October 28, 2016

GREEN BAY, Wis. (WBAY) – A retired priest who served in the Green Bay Catholic Diocese has been sentenced to four months jail for flashing a teenage boy multiple times.

Richard Thomas, 78, appeared in a Brown County courtroom Friday morning for a sentencing hearing on two counts of Exposing Genitals/Pubic Area/Intimate Parts to a Child. He pleaded “no contest” to the charges in September. As part of a plea deal, two other charges were dismissed.

In addition to the jail time, Thomas was also ordered to serve 36 months on probation and register as a sex offender for the rest of his life. He cannot have contact with minors.

Thomas told the court he “struggled with urges” and is “remorseful.” His attorney says Thomas is undergoing treatment.

The judge in the case called Thomas’ behavior “reprehensible.”

“This was a continuing event not just a one time affair, I mean this just went on and on and on and that’s, in my view, a problem, because it is once is bad enough but it continuing on makes it all the worse,” said Hon. Timothy Hinkfuss, Brown County Circuit Court Judge. “When someone’s walking to school, a minor’s walking to school, walking around the neighborhood, whatever it might be, to be exposed to this type of situation is really reprehensible.”

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

PENNSYLVANIA
BishopAccountability.org

Summary of Case: John Stephen Mraz was ordained for the Diocese of Allentown in 1975. He worked or resided in parishes in Reading, Birdsboro, Sinking Spring, Limeport, Tuscarora, Allentown, Northampton and Emmaus. He was also a teacher at Reading and Allentown Catholic High Schools, and vice principal and director of spiritual activities at Marian High School in Tamaqua. He served as chaplain at Lehigh University and was for many years assistant superintendent in the diocesan Department of Education. Additionally, he held the position of director of the Office of Ecumenical and Interreligious Dialogue. He was elevated to Monsignor in 2008.

On September 13, 2016 Mraz was arrested on charges related to the discovery of child pornography on his two laptop computers. A parishioner found the images in late July while updating the devices, and informed the diocese in early August. The diocese contacted law enforcement. Pastor of St. Ann’s in Emmaus, Mraz had been away for a number of weeks due to medical issues and was living at a retirement home for priests. Parishioners were not told that their pastor was being investigated, nor was their assistant priest, who asked the congregation to pray for and visit the ailing Mraz. It wasn’t until Mraz’ arrest that the diocese issued a public statement. He was removed from public ministry.

Ordained: 1975

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

WISCONSIN
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Friday, Oct. 28, 2016

Statement by David Clohessy of St. Louis, Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (314 566 9790, 314 645 5915 home, davidgclohessy@gmail.com)

A Green Bay priest has been sentenced for exposing himself to a child. We applaud law enforcement for pursuing this case and the brave teenager who reported this predator. http://bit.ly/2eMR1ib

We also call on Wisconsin Catholic officials to spread the word about Fr. Richard Thomas’ crime and beg others with information or suspicions about ties to predator – or other sex offender clerics – to call police and prosecutors promptly.

We hope law enforcement either has or will investigate whether any of Fr. Tomas’ supervisors or colleagues knew of or suspected his crimes and concealed or ignored them.

No matter what lawmakers or church officials do or don’t do, we urge every single person who saw, suspected or suffered child sex crimes and cover ups in Catholic churches or institutions to protect kids by calling police, get help by calling therapists, expose wrongdoers by calling attorneys, and be comforted by calling support groups like ours. This is how kids will be safer, adults will recover, criminals will be prosecuted, cover ups will be deterred and the truth will surface.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

CALIFORNIA
Survivors Neetwork of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Friday, Oct. 28, 2016

Statement by David Clohessy of St. Louis, Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (314 566 9790, 314 645 5915 home, davidgclohessy@gmail.com)

We are appalled that a child molesting rabbi is will not be jailed and will instead be sent to a Jewish treatment center. At the same time, we admire and appreciate the courage of one of his ictims.

Rabbi Sholom Doyber Levitansky is getting “one year of counseling and residential treatment at Beit T’Shuvah, an addiction treatment center near Culver City, after pleading no contest to two counts of sexual penetration by a foreign object of a minor,” according to a news source.

[Jewish Journal]

That’s pathetic. We advocate prison not because we’re punitive but because it’s a sure-fire way to safeguard kids. And we’re very skeptical, based on nearly 30 years of experience, when judges let religious offenders special privileges by attending religiously-based or religiously-affiliated “treatment centers.’

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

NEW YORK
New Jersey Jewish News

NJJN Editorial
October 27, 2016

The financial settlement by a Brooklyn yeshiva of two sexual abuse cases marks an important milestone in the battle to expose such assaults and encourage victims to come forward despite strong social pressures to remain silent.

Yeshiva Torah Temimah agreed in the fall of 2014 to pay $2.1 million to two former students who accused Rabbi Joel (Yehuda) Kolko, 70, of molesting them when they were six years old, according to a recent New York Post story. The settlement became public knowledge when papers filed in Brooklyn Supreme Court indicated that the yeshiva had defaulted on its schedule of payments. The lawsuits were filed in 2006 and 2007.

Numerous allegations of sex abuse had been made against Kolko, dating back some 25 years. In 2012, in a deal with Charles Hynes, the Brooklyn district attorney at the time, Kolko pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor counts of child endangerment but did not receive a jail term and was not required to register as a sex offender.

The two separate lawsuits that came to light last week claim that Rabbi Lipa Margulies, the head of the yeshiva, was aware of allegations for more than two decades that Kolko sat boys on his lap and touched their private parts, but kept him on as an elementary school teacher. According to the lawsuits, yeshiva officials threatened the families of victims to ensure their silence.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

WISCONSIN
WISH

GREEN BAY, Wis. (WBAY) – A retired Catholic priest has been sentenced to four months jail for flashing a teenage boy multiple times.

Richard Thomas, 78, appeared in a Brown County courtroom Friday morning for a sentencing hearing on two counts of Exposing Genitals/Pubic Area/Intimate Parts to a Child. He pleaded “no contest” to the charges in September. As part of a plea deal, two other charges were dismissed.

In addition to the jail time, Thomas was also ordered to serve 36 months on probation and register as a sex offender for the rest of his life. He cannot have contact with minors.

Thomas told the court he “struggled with urges” and is “remorseful.” His attorney said Thomas is undergoing treatment.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

WISCONSIN
West Plains Daily Quill

Friday, October 28, 2016

GREEN BAY, Wis. (AP) — A retired priest from the Green Bay diocese has been sentenced to four months in jail for exposing himself to a child.

Father Richard Thomas will serve his time in the Brown County Jail. He has also been given three years of supervised release following his jail sentence and he must register as a sex offender.

Prosecutors say the 78-year-old priest exposed himself a number of times to a 16-year-old boy while living in a home for retired priests in Allouez. WLUK-TV (http://bit.ly/2eMR1ib ) reports authorities say the priest would bang on the window to get the boy’s attention while the teen was walking to school.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

PENNSYLVANIA
The Legal Intelligencer

Max Mitchell, The Legal Intelligencer
October 27, 2016

Presbyterian Children’s Village has been hit with a more than $5 million verdict for placing a child in a foster home where she was sexually abused, despite allegedly knowing that the foster home was being investigated for abuse allegations.

A jury on Thursday awarded the family of the abuse victim $5 million in compensatory damages, and an additional $350,000 in punitive damages. The award came down after two weeks of trial in front of Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas Judge Victor DiNubile, and about five hours of deliberation.

Kline & Specter attorney Nadeem A. Bezar, who tried the case with Emily B. Marks, said the verdict reflected that the jury was both horrified by what the child endured and disappointed that nothing was done sooner to prevent the abuse.

“I think it’s sending a clear message that any time there’s a suspicion of abuse and it involves a child people need to do everything they can to ensure that those children aren’t harmed,” Bezar said.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

AUSTRALIA
9 News

An elderly Victorian man who “remorselessly” sexually abused boys who were in the care of the Salvation Army will spend the remainder of his life behind bars.

Robert Burnett, 77, was today sentenced to 18 years in jail with a minimum of 14 and a half years.

The former Salvation Army boys’ home supervisor was found guilty of abusing seven boys between the early 1970s to the late 1990s.

The victims – aged between seven and 13 – were abused at Burnett’s home or on camping trips, sometimes while they slept.

Some of the offending took place in the presence of other children.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

AUSTRALIA
The Age

Jane Lee

A Salvation Army worker will likely die in jail after being sentenced to 18½ years in prison for sexually abusing children in his care over almost 30 years.

Robert Burnett, 77, maintained his innocence throughout 14 different trials on the abuse, which took place when he invited children to sleep over at his home or took them on camping holidays between 1973 and 1999.

County Court Judge Bill Stuart, who presided over 12 of the trials, said Burnett had shown no remorse or accepted any responsibility in that time for his crimes against seven vulnerable victims, aged seven to 13 years.

Most of them had been placed in state care when they were very young.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

AUSTRALIA
ABC News

A Salvation Army worker is likely to die in jail after being sentenced to 18-and-a-half years in jail for sexually abusing seven boys between 1973 and 1999.

Robert Burnett, 77, who maintained his innocence during 14 separate trials, was found guilty of abusing the boys, who were aged between seven and 13.

Burnett ran Salvation Army homes for boys and five of the victims were wards of the state.

He abused the boys during sleepovers at his home at Thorpdale, east of Melbourne, or while on camping trips at Walhalla and Wandin.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

AUSTRALIA
ABC News

By Ursula Malone

Children and young people are reluctant to speak out about sexual abuse, according to a survey for the Royal Commission into Child Sexual Abuse.

The commission wants young people to play a role in making themselves safer in institutions like schools, churches and sporting clubs.

To do this they commissioned a research project involving 1,500 children and young people, including those with a disability, asking them what makes them feel unsafe and what they think needs to be done to make them safer.

For the past three years, the commission has been hearing accounts of horrific abuse of children and the failing of these institutions.

Children had little say in the running of those institutions and their voices were rarely if ever heard.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

UNITED KINGDOM
Telegraph

Martin Evans, crime correspondent Robert Mendick, chief reporter

28 OCTOBER 2016

The BBC last night sensationally accused the national child sex abuse inquiry of covering up an allegation of indecent assault of a member of staff by a senior colleague.

The alleged cover-up was categorically denied by the inquiry as well as the alleged perpetrator, whose lawyers told Newsnight the allegations were “completely false”.

The man was identified by the BBC Newsnight programme although the corporation admitted it had no evidence the assault took place.

The Telegraph has chosen not to identify him for legal reasons.

In 2013 the BBC was forced to apologise after Newsnight wrongly accused Lord McAlpine of being involved in the alleged sexual abuse of children at north Wales care homes.

It is not true that an inquiry worker made a complaint of sexual assault to the Chair or to the panel or to an official Inquiry spokesman

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

UNITED KINGDOM
BBC Newsnight

By Jake Morris & Hannah Barnes
BBC Newsnight
28 October 2016

The child sex abuse inquiry dropped an investigation of its most senior lawyer despite a disclosure of alleged sexual assault.

Ben Emmerson was suspended in September over concerns about his conduct, but the suspension was lifted the next day when he resigned, allowing him to keep working for the inquiry for two months.

The inquiry faces claims it failed to fully investigate potential wrongdoing.

Mr Emmerson categorically denies sexual assault, bullying or other misconduct.
The inquiry denies it received any complaint of sexual assault.

It said it had suspended the QC because it was “very concerned” by aspects of his leadership.

BBC Newsnight has learned the inquiry was also aware that an inquiry worker had alleged Mr Emmerson had sexually assaulted her in a lift at the inquiry’s offices in Millbank in central London in early September

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

UNITED KINGDOM
Daily Mail

By REBECCA CAMBER, CRIME CORRESPONDENT FOR THE DAILY MAIL

The troubled child abuse inquiry was in ‘meltdown’ last night amid claims it covered up an alleged sex attack by its top lawyer.

Ben Emmerson QC denied sensational claims he groped a colleague and was allowed to quit 24 hours after being suspended.

An inquiry spokesman refuted that a worker had made a complaint of sexual assault at all.

And Mr Emmerson’s lawyers issued a furious rebuttal, saying: ‘[He] categorically denies any allegation of sexual assault or bullying or any other misconduct at the inquiry. Any such allegations are completely false.’

The bombshell allegation reported by BBC Newsnight threatened to deal the £100million Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse a fatal blow.

It was alleged that the lawyer pushed a female workmate against the side of a lift and molested her at the inquiry headquarters in Millbank Tower last month.

According to Newsnight, the alleged victim gave an account of the assault and the inquiry’s chairman Professor Alexis Jay and her panel were made aware the same day.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

UNITED KINGDOM
The Guardian

Haroon Siddique
Friday 28 October 2016

The head of the national inquiry into child abuse has been urged to publicly address claims that it covered up an alleged sexual assault by its most senior lawyer.

An inquiry worker alleged that Ben Emmerson QC sexually assaulted her in a lift at the inquiry’s offices in Millbank in central London in early September, according to BBC Newsnight.

He was suspended that month, over what the inquiry said at the time were leadership concerns, but the suspension was lifted the next day when he resigned, allowing him to keep working for the inquiry for two months.

Emmerson’s lawyers have said the allegation of sexual assaultis “completely false” but the claim has added to the turbulence afflicting the inquiry.

Tim Loughton, a Conservative MP who was chair of the home affairs select committee when it questioned the inquiry chair, Prof Alexis Jay, and other panel members last week, said Jay needed to address the allegations and restore confidence in its work.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

UNITED KINGDOM
Legal Cheek

By Katie King

There is puzzlement this morning in legal London after BBC Newsnight claimed that Ben Emmerson QC, a highly-respected barrister and former leading lawyer at an independent child abuse inquiry, has been accused of sexually assaulting a woman in the lift of a London office.

Emmerson “categorically denies” the allegations. The inquiry denies it received any complaint of sexual assault.

The top lawyer, one of 35 QCs at human rights and public law set Matrix, was suspended from his post at the national abuse inquiry in September. This happened, it was reported at the time, because the inquiry had “become very concerned about aspects of [his] leadership of the counsel team”. Inquiry chairwoman Professor Alexis Jay continued:

He has therefore been suspended from duty so that these can be properly investigated.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

UNITED KINGDOM
The Sun

BY PATRICK GYSIN 28th October 2016

THE child sex abuse probe was last night accused of covering up an alleged sex assault by its former top lawyer.

A woman claims Ben Emmerson QC groped her in a lift at the inquiry offices in Westminster.

Mr Emmerson, 53, was suspended on September 28 before quitting a day later. No reason was given for his resignation.

He denies any wrongdoing and the woman is understood not to have made a formal complaint.

However, BBC’s Newsnight claimed chairwoman Alexis Jay and her panel were made aware of allegations in late September but did not inform the public.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

CALIFORNIA
Jewish Journal

by Eitan Arom
Posted on Oct. 27, 2016

Rabbi Sholom D. Levitansky has agreed to one year of counseling and residential treatment at Beit T’Shuvah, an addiction treatment center near Culver City, after pleading no contest to two counts of sexual penetration by a foreign object of a minor.

At the Oct. 27 hearing at the Airport Courthouse on La Cienega Boulevard, his lawyer, Vicki Podberesky, told Judge Yvette Verastegui he had checked into Beit T’Shuvah the day before.

Levitansky won’t be officially sentenced until he completes the treatment program. Once he’s sentenced a year from now, he won’t face jail time but will have to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life, according to Los Angeles County District Attorney spokesperson Ricardo Santiago.

Each count of sexual penetration with a foreign object carries a maximum sentence of one year in prison, but Levitansky will serve his time at Beit T’Shuva instead of a prison sentence.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

KENYA
The Star

Oct. 28, 2016

By ALPHONCE MUNG’AHU

A woman has accused a pastor of Seventh Day Adventist Church, Nairobi East, of sexually harassing her.

The woman said she works as a teacher at a school sponsored by the church, at which the pastor is also based.

She filed an affidavit accusing pastor Paul Owuor of the offence.

But Owuor denied the allegations saying “the woman is out to taint my image”. He also denied her allegations that she reported the matter to the church’s management.

The teacher claimed the pastor sexually harassed her after calling her into his office at around 8.30am on September 30.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

AUSTRALIA
Sydney Morning Herald

Tom Keneally

In the early 1970s I knew a splendid priest whose authority to say Mass and operate within the Archdiocese of Sydney was terminated by the then prelate, Cardinal James Freeman. The priest’s name was Father Pat Connor and he was a dear friend. As a young missionary in India, he was influenced by Gandhi, and I never knew a person who practised non-violent dissent with less pathology and more dignity and human love than Pat. As a peaceable man, he was involved in anti-Vietnam and anti-apartheid protest, including the famous and unwise Springbok tour of 1971.

For many of us, in those years following the death of Pope John XXIII, who had tried to embrace the world rather than fearing it, Pat’s was the human face and the wise voice we met just as we were on our disgruntled way out of the Catholic Church. His sermons were visionary, and concerned real issues. For that very reason, the content of his sermons were frequently complained of to the Cardinal. Suddenly, he was being expelled from Sydney for no moral flaw other than seeing a connection between fraternal love and politics. He went to New Jersey, where he lived and worked from his order’s “house” or monastery, as a fully empowered priest, for the rest of his career. This ended with his death in 2015. In his late years, he had published a well-known book of advice to young women on marriage, Whom Not to Marry. In contrast to St Paul’s “Wives, obey your husbands,” Pat wrote, “Never marry a man who tries to control you.” He became a visitor to the morning American TV shows where his rare authenticity guaranteed he was a hit.

In 2002, he had given me advice on a piece I wrote for The New Yorker on the church abuse issue. Pat told me how pleased he was to live fraternally in a monastery, instead of on his own in a “sterile presbytery” where “laughter is rarely heard”. But he said something far more radical to me: he declared that if the church did not address this issue of abuse with frankness and openness, and with the compassion it declared itself to be the chief promoter of, then the state would come to intervene, and the civil arm would force the Church to do the right thing. By then, he predicted, ordinary priests like him would be suspect because the reputation of their profession would have become identified in the public mind with child sexual abuse, or the enabling or hiding of abuse.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

PENNSYLVANIA
Philly.com

by The Associated Press

ALTOONA, Pa. (AP) – A Pennsylvania Catholic diocese and a priest are denying allegations by two sisters who say the priest repeatedly molested them as girls, including one at her First Communion party.

Attorneys for the Altoona-Johnstown diocese and the Rev. Charles Bodziak say he “denies any sexual interest in children and denies he ever utilized his position to ‘groom’ or seek sexual gratification from any child, at any time.”

The Altoona Mirror first reported Wednesday on the church response filed Oct. 7 in Blair County court.

The church attorneys argue the lawsuits filed in June by the sisters, now in their 40s, are barred by the statute of limitations, which requires alleged child-sex abuse victims to sue by the time they are 30.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

PENNSYLVANIA
Daily Times

Back in the spring, state Rep. Nick Miccarelli, Jamie Santora and others in the Delco delegation stuck their neck out.

The Republicans did something a lot of people thought would never happen in Harrisburg. They passed House Bill 1947.

Like their colleagues across the state, the local representatives were outraged over the latest grand jury report on child sexual abuse, this time in the Altoona-Johnstown diocese, which showed the exact same kind of abuse and cover-ups that had been pointed out a decade ago here in the Philadelphia Archdiocese.

They decided to send a message, joining a bipartisan wave that passed the measure by an 180-15.

Not only did they send a message, they also got one in return.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

NEW YORK
New York Daily News
NEW YORK
New York Daily News

BY MICHAEL O’KEEFFE
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Thursday, October 27, 2016

A Brooklyn yeshiva quietly became the first Orthodox Jewish school to compensate students who claim they were molested by a teacher when it agreed to pay more than $2 million to two boys and their families in 2014 — and now it may be the first Orthodox school to default on a settlement with sex abuse victims.

Yeshiva-Mesitva Torah Temimah, a prominent Orthodox school on Brooklyn’s Ocean Parkway, agreed to pay one former student $900,000 and the other $1.35 million in a settlement reached in October 2014.

The agreements were originally confidential, but they became public earlier this month after lawyers for the boys filed papers in Brooklyn Supreme Court that said the school failed to make payments due earlier this year.

“This is the first time the public has known about these payments,” said sex-abuse expert Marci Hamilton, a lawyer and a distinguished scholar at the University of Pennsylvania. “This is the first settlement with a yeshiva that has been publicly disclosed. I was surprised as anybody to see this. This is a sizeable settlement.”

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

INDIA
Deccan Chronicle

BENGALURU: A 54-year-old priest was arrested by the Indiranagar police after he allegedly sexually abused a six-year-old girl on Wednesday evening.

The accused has been identified as Shivakumar, a resident of Thippasandra. He was working as a priest at a temple close to this house. According to the police, the alleged incident took place around 6.15 pm.

The girl, who lived along with her parents in the neighbouring house, was playing near the temple, when the accused allegedly took her inside the temple, where he allegedly sexually assaulted her.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

NEW YORK
New York Post

By Shawn Cohen and Bruce Golding

October 26, 2016

A Borough Park community leader bragged on a taped phone call how he pulled some strings to get future top cop James O’Neill to transfer a friendly lieutenant back to the neighborhood, The Post has learned.

Community Board 12 Chairman Yidel Perlstein wanted Michael Andreano returned to Borough Park’s 66th Precinct from the 60th in Brighton Beach, where the cop had been shipped following his promotion.

Perlstein, speaking in Yiddish, describes in the secretly recorded conversation how he approached NYPD Assistant Chief Steven Powers at a September 2015 breakfast meeting in Williamsburg and asked that Andreano be moved.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

NEW YORK
New York Post

By Shawn Cohen and Bruce Golding October 24, 2016

A high-ranking Brooklyn cop has been stripped of his badge and gun over ties to a key figure in an alleged $1 million NYPD bribery scheme, The Post has learned.

Lt. Michael Andreano of the 66th Precinct in Boro Park was put on desk duty as part of the wide-ranging corruption probe that has already resulted in pending charges against three NYPD bosses, sources said.

Andreano is suspected of having improper dealings with Alex “Shaya” Lichtenstein, a leader of the Boro Park “Shomrim” patrol who in April was busted on bribery and conspiracy charges involving pistol permits, sources said.

“This guy was tight with Shaya and would go out of his way to accommodate him,” a source said.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

ARKANSAS
BishopAccountability.org

Summary of Case: Robert A. Torres was a priest of the Diocese of Little Rock, ordained in 1966. He assisted at a number of parishes in Little Rock before being named lead priest at a Malvern parish, and subsequently in Little Rock, Hope and Ashdown. Torres was longtime chair of the Diocesan Liturgical Commission and director of the Mexican-American Spanish Center. He retired in 1995. After 2002 Torres is no longer indexed in the Official Catholic Directory.

In September 2016 the diocese announced that it had recently met with two people who were sexually abused by Torres over 35 years previously, while Torres was assigned to Our Lady of Good Counsel in Little Rock. The two were members of the parish; one of them was referred to as a “youth” at the time of the abuse. The diocese stated further that, per Torres’ admission and its own investigation, Torres likely abused at least two or three other young people.

Ordained: 1966
Retired: 1995
Laicized: after 2002, before 2016

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

NEW YORK
The Jewish Week

Thu, 10/27/2016

The financial settlement by a Brooklyn yeshiva of two sexual abuse cases marks an important milestone in the battle to expose such assaults and encourage victims to come forward despite strong social pressures to remain silent.

Yeshiva Torah Temimah agreed in the fall of 2014 to pay $2.1 million to two former students who accused Rabbi Joel (Yehuda) Kolko, 70, of molesting them when they were 6 years old, according to a recent New York Post story. The settlement became public when papers filed in Brooklyn Supreme Court indicated that the yeshiva had defaulted on its schedule of payment. The lawsuits were filed in 2006 and 2007.

Numerous allegations of sexual abuse had been made against Rabbi Kolko, dating back some 25 years. In 2012, in a deal with Charles Hynes, the Brooklyn district attorney at the time, Rabbi Kolko pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor counts of child endangerment but did not receive a jail term and was not required to register as a sex offender.

The two separate lawsuits that came to light last week claim that Rabbi Lipa Margulies, the head of the yeshiva, was aware for more than two decades of allegations that Rabbi Kolko sat boys on his lap and touched their private parts, but kept him on as an elementary school teacher.

According to the lawsuits, yeshiva officials threatened the families of victims to ensure their silence.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

NEW YORK
Catholic League

Bill Donohue comments on an editorial by the New York Daily News that was posted on its website:

Yesterday, I took the Daily News and the New York Times to task for not running a story on a Brooklyn Orthodox Jewish school that agreed to pay $2.1 million to two former students. Rabbi Joel Kolko was charged with molesting the boys, beginning at the age of six.

The Daily News has now offered a responsible rejoinder. It concedes that it “blew it,” explaining that it “sometimes misses stories.” Fair enough. It then contends that it covers the sexual abuse of minors whenever and wherever it occurs. It also defends itself against charges of anti-Catholicism, providing some examples of its fairness.

Unlike the Daily News, the New York Times has not explained why it did not cover the story about Rabbi Kolko. While I believe that the absence of a story in the Daily News was indeed an error, I do not believe that the Times erred.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

NEW YORK
Catholic League

Bill Donohue comments on biased reporting by two New York dailies:

We have repeatedly said that the vast majority of media outlets and pundits who dwell on priestly sexual abuse—a problem that occurred mostly between the mid-1960s and the mid-1980s—are not seriously interested in the sexual abuse of minors. One way to prove this is to review how the media cover this issue when the victimizers are not Catholic. The evidence is overwhelming: the Catholic League conclusion is correct.

Just this week, the New York Post and the Jewish Forward reported on an Orthodox yeshiva in Brooklyn that agreed to pay $2.1 million in a child sexual abuse settlement. The case involves Rabbi Joel Kolko, a senior rabbi, who was charged with molesting two boys at the Jewish day school. This was not the first time that charges had been made against this rabbi—they have been going on for 25 years.

Rabbi Kolko is quite unlike most of the priests accused of abusing minors. In the case of priests, almost all of the abusers were homosexuals: 81 percent of the victims were male and 78 percent were postpubescent. In the case of Rabbi Kolko, he started molesting the boys when they were six-years-old. He is a true pedophile.

The other two New York newspapers, the Daily News and the New York Times, are known for their fixation on priestly sexual abuse, and for their hard-hitting editorials on this subject. But neither paper ran a story on Rabbi Kolko, and there will be no editorial. So predictable.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

NEW YORK
New York Daily News

Editorial

Catholic League President Bill Donohue has taken note that the Daily News failed to report that an Orthodox Jewish school in Brooklyn agreed to pay $2.1 million to two former students who accused a rabbi of sexual abuse.

An energetically valuable defender of his faith, Donohue sees anti-Catholic bias in the fact that The News published not a word about the settlement paid as compensation for the serial predations of Rabbi Joel Kolko.

We see something else: human error.

Like any media organization, The News sometimes misses stories. This was one of them — and it was especially significant for a publication that has campaigned for reform of New York State statutes of limitations on criminal and civil cases against those who sexually abuse minors.

Our particular interest aside, the conclusion of the Kolko civil suit demanded attention because his alleged pedophilia extended for years, he had escaped the law before and the settlement was the first of its kind by a yeshiva.

So, we blew it.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

COLORADO
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

SNAP flier in Colorado about the Sodalitium Christianae Vitae (SCV)

Victims blast past Denver archbishop
Church officials keep quiet about cult-like group here
Its founder abused kids in Peru & others allegedly did so too
SNAP members will hand out leaflets to Cathedral mass-goers
Several members with the controversial group are now in Sheridan
And the widely-criticized organization has run a local retreat center
Advocates ask Catholic staffers to “disclose predators & warn flock”

WHAT: Handing leaflets to parishioners as they arrive for mass, clergy sex abuse victims and their supporters will urge Colorado’s top Catholic officials to:

–– “come clean” about their support for a controversial, ultra-conservative Catholic cult-like group whose founder is a confirmed child molester (and seven other officials are accused of wrongdoing),

–– stop promoting the group, supervise its local members closely, and

–– start warning other US bishops about it.

They will also beg anyone who may have seen, suspected or suffered clergy sex crimes or cover ups in Colorado to call police officials, not church officials.

WHEN: Thursday, Oct. 27 at 11:50 a..m.

WHERE: Outside the Denver Catholic Cathedral Basilica of the Immaculate Conception, at the corner of Logan and E. Colfax Avenue.

WHO: Several members of the 28,000 plus international support group called SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAPnetwork.org), including a Denver man who is the organization’s long-time volunteer Colorado director

WHY: Several years ago, the former head of the Denver Catholic archdiocese, Charles Chaput, brought to Denver a controversial Catholic sect whose founder sexually molested kids. His successors in SVC have said the allegations were credible. Seven others in the sect are accused of kidnapping and assaulting youth. Several members of the group ran/run a retreat center for the archdiocese and now work in an archdiocesan parish.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

NEW JERSEY
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Wednesday, Oct. 26, 2016

Statement by Barbara Dorris of St. Louis, Outreach Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (314 503 0003 cell, bdorris@SNAPnetwork.org)

A Newark NJ Catholic priest faces child pornography charges. We hope he’s convicted. We call on Newark’s top Catholic official, Archbishop John Myers, to aggressively reach out to anyone who may have information or suspicions about his crimes.

And we hope this news prompts others who may have seen, suspected or suffered his crimes to call police so Fr. Kevin A. Gugliotta might be charged with and convicted on other offenses and be kept away from kids even longer.

[Asbury Park Press]

All too often, when child sex offenders are caught, their supervisors and colleagues clam up. But if kids are to be safer, everyone who saw, suspected or suffered child sex crimes must call law enforcement immediately. Those who hire or work with predators must do all they can to find others who have been assaulted and beg them to call law enforcement. This is especially true of Catholic bishops, who recruit, educate, ordain, hire, train and often transfer and cover up for predator priests. These bishops can’t wash their hands of these pedophiles just because they’ve been sent somewhere else or have moved somewhere else.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

BANGLADESH
The Daily Star

It was sometime in 1976. Two policemen, a rookie and a veteran officer, gathered at Boston police station. They were discussing the arrest of a Catholic priest on charge of molestation of children. A high ranking clerk was talking to the mother of the children in the police station. The assistant district attorney then entered the police station and told the cops not to let the press get wind of what happened. When the rookie remarked how it would be difficult to keep the press away during the arraignment, the veteran scoffed and sarcastically asked “what arraignment?”
Spotlight for victims

Shakhawat Liton and Tuhin Shubhra Adhikary

This is the beginning of the Hollywood film – Spotlight — that won the Oscar as the best picture of 2015. To win the Oscar, it had to beat The Revenant, an exciting movie based on the story of Hugh Glass (1783—1833), an American frontiersman and fur trapper who has become a folk hero after surviving a bear attack and then travelling hundreds of miles alone to safety. It won two of the biggest Oscars — for best actor and best director. Titanic sensation Leonardo DiCaprio won his first Oscar as best actor in The Revenant. And it was almost certain that The Revenant would win Oscar as the best film of 2015.

In terms of the budget and income, Spotlight lagged far behind. The budget for The Revenant was $135 million and it earned $533 million. In contrast, the budget of Spotlight was only $20 million and it earned $88.3 million, according to Wikipedia.

But Spotlight proved all speculations wrong. What is the secret and strength of Spotlight? In 129 minutes, the film tells about a true story of how The Boston Globe uncovered the massive scandal of child molestation and cover-up within the local Catholic Archdiocese. The revelation has shaken the entire Catholic Church to its core. Members of The Boston Globe’s Spotlight Team won the prestigious Pulitzer Prize for Public Service in 2003. The newspaper was honoured, according to the Pulitzer website, “for its courageous, comprehensive coverage … an effort that pierced secrecy, stirred local, national and international reaction and produced changes in the Roman Catholic Church.”

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

UNITED KINGDOM
Croydon Advertiser

By Tom_Matthews | Posted: October 27, 2016

A former social worker and Catholic priest who abused 13 children over more than two decades, including at Shirley Oaks children’s home, today had his “too soft” jail term increased by a third.

Philip Temple molested 12 boys and one girl over 25 years, starting in the 1970s, while working in south London care homes and at a north London church.

He also lied on oath at a trial in the 1990s, when he was cleared of sex offences against a teenage boy – forcing his victim to go through the trauma of giving evidence against him twice.

The 66-year-old, of Court Downs Road, Beckenham, was given a 12-year sentence at Woolwich Crown Court in August, after he admitted 27 sex offences and two counts of perjury.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

CANADA
The Globe and Mail

OTTAWA — The Canadian Press
Published Thursday, Oct. 27, 2016

The Supreme Court of Canada will decide whether painful, personal accounts from the survivors of residential schools should be destroyed or permanently archived for posterity.

The survivors’ stories were used by the independent assessment process, which handled compensation claims under the 2006 Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement.

A lower court judge ruled that the material should be destroyed after 15 years, although individuals could consent to have their stories preserved at the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation in Winnipeg.

In a 2-1 ruling last April, the Ontario Court of Appeal agreed, saying the documents are not government records subject to archiving laws and that their disposition should be at the sole discretion of the survivors.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

PENNSYLVANIA
Foundation to Abolish Child Sex Abuse

State Representative Mark Rozzi
126th Legislative District

As I write this, the PA legislative session is coming to an end. And, despite the work of many in these last moments, PA HB 1947 will die at the end of this session.

To all those who wrote letters and emails, made phone calls, made visits to Harrisburg to tell your stories and why HB 1947 was a long overdue partial answer to ensuring justice for all victims- past, present and future- we here at FACSA say thank you, thank you, thank you.

We especially thank Rep. Mark Rozzi and his staff who have worked tirelessly on this issue for the last 4 years. A special thanks to Pam Oddo, executive assistant to Rep. Mark Rozzi.

While the provisions of HB 1947 that we supported did not pass our legilature, we at FACSA can say (as supporters of #SOLReform for more than a decade) this has been a banner year for advocates of #SOLReform on several fronts:

• For the first time here in PA a legislative body heard and responded to the call for a law that would provide some level of justice for victims of child sex abuse. That effort was spearheaded by one of our heroes- Rep. Mark Rozzi;
• PA Governor Tom Wolf stated he would sign the bill if it passed the House and Senate;
• All PA legislators heard again and again about the need for #SOLReform from victims and supporters from all over the state;
• The state’s Office of the Attorney General courageously continues to search out the truth about past abuses and coverups by conducting statewide grand jury investigations into several Roman Catholic archdioceses. No other state AG’s offices have ever done this. Ever.
• More victims found the courage to come forward, tell their stories and to seek help, hope and healing;
• More advocates/ advocacy organizations joined the fight for justice for adult victims of child sex abuse;
• More editorial boards supported SOL Reform;
• More print, online and TV media coverage of the need for #SOLReform added to the education of the public on a complex issue at best, and one not easily understood;
• The battle made national news more than once.

While it is time to take a break for a bit to recharge- know the battle will be taken up again in the new year, in the new legislative session.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

IRAN
Al Arabiya

Ramadhan al-Saadi, AlArabiya.net
Wednesday, 19 October 2016

Rape victims are coming forward alleging the one of Iran’s leading Quran readers sexually molested them.

Saeed Toosi is considred one of Iran’s most celebrated Quran reader and was once considered an “exemplary model to be followed” according to Khamenei, current Supreme Leader of Iran.

The 46-year-old representative of Iran in the international Quranic competition, and the winner of the first prize both internationally and locally, has reportedly raped seven of his students aged between 12 ad 14, during the past seven years.

They decided to shed light on their cases and bring it to the public while an Iranian court attempts at covering up the sexual scandal under supposed direct orders from the Khamenei and the Supreme Judicial authorities.

Toosi adds up to a growing list of scandal facing Tehran, after series of economic ones have preoccupied the Iranian public.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

IRAN
The Freethinker

Saeed Toosi, 46, above, one of Iran’s most celebrated Koran readers, has been accused of sexually assaulting a number of his students aged between 12 ad 14 over a period of seven years.

According to this report, Toosi – once descibed an “exemplary model to be followed” by Ali Khamenei, current Supreme Leader of Iran –represented Iran in the international Koranic competition and won the first prize.

In a television programme broadcasted by The Persian Voice of America, three of his victims said that they have written evidence and audio recordings clearly pointing to Toosi in which he admitted in his own handwriting that his actions were a “mistake”.

In an audio recording , Toosi is heard saying the that Khamenei is well aware of the situation, and had agreed with the head of the judiciary authority Sadek Larijani to cover up the case in order to safeguard the reputation of the Koranic institution in Iran.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

UNITED KINGDOM
Telegraph

Lexi Finnigan
27 OCTOBER 2016

A bisexual priest who took part in group sex and visited gay saunas has been sacked after his wife exposed his double life.

A Church of England tribunal heard details of Reverend James Day’s sexual antics after his estranged wife amassed a cache of evidence against him and made a formal complaint.

This included four memory sticks containing pornographic images and explicit emails Rev Day sent referring to gay liaisons.

After hearing a damning statement from Birte Day, the Bishop’s Disciplinary Tribunal for the Diocese of Europe ruled his actions amounted to “conduct unbecoming and inappropriate” and banned him from ministry for life.

The hearing found the dad-of-three had been violent towards his wife – tightening a scarf around her throat so she couldn’t breathe, spanking her as punishment for wearing shorts, and spitting in her face.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

CANADA
The Globe and Mail

GLORIA GALLOWAY
OTTAWA — The Globe and Mail
Published Thursday, Oct. 27, 2016

A 66-year-old indigenous man who says he was raped by a priest when he was a young boy at an Indian residential school has been waiting more than six years for the compensation he believes he is owed by Canada.

No one disputes that the man, known as MF in legal documents, is entitled to a share of the money from the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement for those who were abused at the institutions. But a legal battle being waged by the federal government will prevent him from being paid for the foreseeable future.

The government argues that Justice Paul Perell of the Ontario Superior Court overstepped his authority in July when he ordered the government to sit down with MF’s lawyer to determine how much the man is owed and to give it to him.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

NEW JERSEY
TAPinto

By TAPINTO.NET STAFF
October 27, 2016

SCOTCH PLAINS/FANWOOD, NJ — Father Kevin Gugliotta, who served the parishioners at St. Bartholomew the Apostle Church in Scotch Plains for several years as a youth minister, has been arrested in Ocean County for possession and distribution of child pornography, according to multiple news reports.

A criminal docket from a Wayne County, Pa. magisterial court listed 20 allegations against the priest for possession and distribution of photographs or video of children in sex acts, according to a report by the Asbury Park Press. The activities allegedly took place on Gulgiotta’s personal computer at his vacation home in Pennsylvania. He awaits extradition from New Jersey to Pennsylvania.

St. Bart’s parishioners are shocked by the news.

“He was a youth minister at our parish. I would trust him with my own child. I’m just devastated,” said one Scotch Plains mom who spoke to TAPintoSPF under condition of anonymity.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

PENNSYLVANIA
Citizens Voice

BY DAVID SINGLETON / PUBLISHED: OCTOBER 27, 2016

A Roman Catholic priest from Mahwah, New Jersey, faces 40 felony counts of possessing and disseminating child pornography after investigators say he uploaded illicit files to the internet from a Wayne County apartment he referred to as his “day off place.”

The Rev. Kevin A. Gugliotta, 54, was taken into custody as a fugitive from justice Thursday night in Toms River, New Jersey, Wayne County District Attorney Janine Edwards said Wednesday. He was being held in the Ocean County Jail pending extradition to Pennsylvania.

His arrest followed a three-month investigation that Edwards said involved law enforcement officials from multiple counties in Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

The Rev. Gugliotta uploaded 20 files depicting children engaged in sexual activity to internet chat rooms between July 9 and Aug. 29 from his apartment in Lehigh Township, according to the arrest affidavit prepared by Wayne County Detective Michael F. McMorrow.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

PENNSYLVANIA
The Times Herald

By Kathleen E. Carey, kcarey@21st-centurymedia.com, @dtbusiness on Twitter
POSTED: 10/26/16

The fight to expand the statute of limitations for childhood sexual abuse victims in Harrisburg is over for this session. HB 1947 failed to be put out for a final vote, and its main supporter called it a victim of an abuse of power and vowed to resuscitate the issue in the next session in the new year.

HB 1947 surfaced in the spring as the state House passed the measure 180 to 15 in April, on the heels of a state attorney general grand jury report into hundreds of students abused in the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown by at least 50 Catholic priests dating back 40 years. But when the bill moved to the Senate, it faced a concerted campaign from the Archdiocese of Philadelphia and the insurance industry to block controversial language that would allow victims from decades ago to come forward now and file civil suits against their alleged abusers.

The archdiocese urged parishioners to contact their legislators to oppose the bill. Some local House members who had supported the measure said they took heat from the archdiocese, with one actually having his name casually mentioned in the Sunday bulletin at his parish.

In June, the state Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on House Bill 1947, which proponents said was biased due to the connection of the committee chairman, state Sen. Stewart Greenleaf, R-12, of Willow Grove, Pa., and his firm representing Catholic entities in abuse cases in Delaware. The firm fought similar legislation there, as well as then-Solicitor General Bruce Castor’s testimony in light of the guarantee he made to Bill Cosby about avoiding prosecution on rape charges years ago.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

NEVADA
Las Vegas Review-Journal

By DAVID FERRARA
LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL

As Henderson police tried to arrest Martin Gillen at his home in August on a charge of lewdness with a child, the registered sex offender stabbed himself in the throat, saying he did not want to return to prison, according to prosecutors.

Gillen, 43, had been working as a home school teacher through the Mormon church, when he was accused of fondling a 10-year-old girl at her home, according to Chief Deputy District Attorney Dena Rinetti.

The prosecutor announced Wednesday that Gillen had been indicted on four more felony charges: first-degree kidnapping, child abuse, neglect or endangerment, use of a minor in producing pornography and burglary.

If convicted, he faces life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

CANADA
CBC News

By Josée Dupuis, CBC News Posted: Oct 27, 2016

Behind the stories of abuse that took place across Canada’s residential schools, there are also never-before-told stories emerging of First Nations parents who tried to defy the government by hiding their own children.

Radio-Canada’s investigative journalism program, Enquête, spoke to families who fought back against the federally-run mandatory system.

Marie-Jeanne Papatie remembers seeing her older brothers and sisters leave the First Nations reserve of Lac-Simon to attend residential school Saint-Marc-de-Figuery, near Amos in the Abitibi region in northwestern Quebec.

The next summer, she recalls her father hearing about stories of abuse that took place at the institution.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

UTAH
Gillette News Record

By BRADY McCOMBS and LINDSAY WHITEHURST Associated Press

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Students at Brigham Young University who report sexual assault will no longer be investigated for possible violations of the strict honor code that bans drinking and premarital sex, the Mormon-owned school announced Wednesday in a major reversal to a practice that drew widespread scrutiny.

The college accepted several recommendations made by a faculty council that reviewed how sexual assault cases are handled. The inquiry began in May after female students and alumni spoke out against the school opening honor-code investigations of students who report abuses.

Victims advocates said the practice discourages reporting of sexual violence, which is already underreported on campuses nationwide. The sweeping changes mark a victory for victims and advocates who have been seeking reform for years and serve as a university acknowledgement that its practices were deficient.

Two former students who went public with their experiences said they are mostly pleased with the upcoming changes at the school, where students must agree to a code forbidding sex before marriage and drug and alcohol use.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

IOWA
KCCI

Steffani Nolte

DES MOINES, Iowa —
A Des Moines man is back behind bars after being sentenced Tuesday to 10 years in prison for third-degree sexual abuse and harboring a runaway.

Police said Damion Rutues, 37, hid a 15-year-old runaway girl in a small sleeping area inside a church on Forest Avenue.

Court documents show the 15-year-old girl ran away from home with her girlfriend.

Rutues let them stay inside Learning of the Lord Revival Center because the girls said they were homeless and had nowhere else to go.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

AUSTRALIA
Lismore Echo

Andrew Backhouse | 27th Oct 2016

A FORMER Toowoomba schoolboy who says he was sexually assaulted at school has blasted an offer of counselling as “too little too late”.

David Patterson was a student at Toowoomba Anglican College and Preparatory School in 1969/70 when he was eight.

He said he was abused by a teacher and accused of being a liar for reporting it to the school and his parents.

He has since spent time in psychiatric wards, starting with Lowson House in 1978.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

PENNSYLVANIA
Altoona Mirror

OCT 27, 2016

RUSS O’REILLY
Staff Writer
roreilly@altoonamirror.com

The Altoona-Johnstown Roman Catholic Diocese officials and the Rev. Charles Bodziak deny accusations made in civil lawsuits filed against them.

The diocese and Bodziak filed answers on Oct. 7 to lawsuits brought against them in June by sisters Renee Rice and Cheryl Haun.

“Defendant Bodziak … denies any sexual interest in children and denies he ever utilized his position to ‘groom’ or seek sexual gratification from any child, at any time,” Bodziak’s answer to the lawsuit states.

The complaint filed for Rice alleges abuse between 1975 and 1981 when she was between 8 and 14 years old. Haun’s complaint alleges she was abused between 1976 and 1977, when she was between 7 and 8 years old.

The defendants named in Rice and Haun’s lawsuits are Bodziak, the diocese, retired Bishop Joseph Adamec and Monsignor Michael Servinsky, executor of the estate of decease Bishop James Hogan, who was running the diocese during the women’s childhood.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

PENNSYLVANIA
Daily Times

By Kathleen E. Carey, Delaware County Daily Times
POSTED: 10/26/16

The fight to expand the statute of limitations for childhood sexual abuse victims in Harrisburg is over for this session. HB 1947 failed to be put out for a final vote and its main supporter called it a victim of an abuse of power and vowed to resuscitate the issue in the next session in the new year.

HB 1947 surfaced in the spring as the state House passed the measure 180 to 15 in April, on the heels of a state Attorney General grand jury report into hundreds of students abused in the Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown by at least 50 Catholic priests dating back 40 years. But when the bill moved to the Senate, it faced a concerted campaign from the Archdiocese of Philadelphia and the insurance industry to block controversial language that would allow victims from decades ago to come forward now and file civil suits against their alleged abusers.

The archdiocese urged parishioners to contact their legislators to oppose the bill. Some local House members who had supported the measure said they took heat from the archdiocese, with one actually having his name casually mentioned in the Sunday bulletin at his parish.

In June, the state Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on House Bill 1947, which proponents said was biased due to the connection of the committee chairman, state Sen. Stewart Greenleaf, R-12, of Willow Grove, and his firm representing Catholic entities in abuse cases in Delaware. The firm fought similar legislation there, as well as then-Solicitor General Bruce Castor’s testimony in light of the guarantee he made to Bill Cosby about avoiding prosecution on rape charges years ago.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

ROME
Catholic Herald (UK)

AP

Australian police questioned the cardinal over allegations dating back to the 1970s

Australian police flew to Rome to interview a top Vatican cardinal about allegations of sexual assault dating back decades, officials said Wednesday.

Cardinal George Pell, Pope Francis’s top financial adviser and one of his most trusted aides, has long been dogged by allegations he mishandled cases of clergy abuse when he was archbishop of Melbourne and later Sydney. In recent months, Cardinal Pell has faced accusations of child abuse himself when he was a young priest in the 1970s.

On Wednesday, police in Australia’s Victoria state confirmed that they had interviewed Cardinal Pell over the allegations.

“Three members of Victoria police traveled to Rome last week where Cardinal George Pell voluntarily participated in an interview regarding allegations of sexual assault,” a police spokesman said.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

NEW YORK/CONNECTICUT
BishopAccountability.org

Summary of Case: A native of Sri Lanka, Tissera/Warnakulasuriya was ordained in 1989. By 1997 he was working in the Archdiocese of New York, as an assistant in a Staten Island parish. There is a two-year gap in his Directory listings, and he reappears in 2002 in the Diocese of Hartford CT. He assisted there at parishes in West Hartford, Enfield, Watertown and New Britain. Notably there are gaps in his assignments 2003-2004 and again 2006-2007. In 2011 Tissera/Warnakulasuriya was made pastor of St. Bernard’s in Tariffville, CT.

In July 2011 Tissera/Warnakulasuriya was placed on leave by the diocese after a male youth reported that the priest touched his pubic area during confessions in December 2010 and again in May and July 2011. The youth was 17 or 18 years-old during the incidents. Tissera/Warnakulasuriya was arrested in August 2011. In September 2012 he was found guilty of misdemeanor sexual assault and sentenced to three years’ probation.

In a lawsuit settled in October 2016, Tissera/Warnakulasuriya was accused of repeated sexual assault of a 13 to 14 year-old boy in the Fall of 2000 through Spring 2001. The suit places the priest at St. John the Evangelist in Watertown, CT. The incidents were said to have occurred during what was supposed to be spiritual counseling in the boy’s bedroom.

In 2016 Tissera/Warnakulasuriya’s status with the diocese remains “Leave of Absence.”

Ordained: 1989

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

PENNSYLVANIA
We Are Central PA

A controversial proposal to extend the civil statute of limitations for child sex abuse victims will not get a vote this year.

State Rep. Mark Rozzi, who was abused by a priest as a child, has championed the effort.

Earlier this year an investigation revealed decades of priest sexual abuse inside the Altoona-Johnstown Catholic Diocese.

Most lawmakers agree that victims’ rights should be expanded, but they don’t believe victims should be allowed to sue the church and collect monetary damages for something that happened decades ago.

Rep.Rozzi released the follow statement today after it became clear that further action wouldn’t be taken by the General Assembly on a statute of limitations reform bill before the end of the legislative session:

“The Altoona-Johnstown Diocese grand jury report released in March that detailed the wholesale abuse of innocent children by depraved predators, finally unleashed the public outrage that had been missing for over a decade. The powers-that-be covered up the unspeakable crimes, leaving children and their families with no path to justice.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

IDAHO
KMVT

A Catholic priest from Mountain Home who’s been accused of raping an airman was scheduled to be in court Monday.

The preliminary hearing for Victor F. Jagerstatter’s was rescheduled for Jan. 6, 2016 at 11 a.m. in Elmore County.

Jagerstatter, 39, was accused of attempting oral sex with an airman who was passed out, according to a probable cause affidavit.

Court documents state that on July 9, the victim, an airman at the Mountain Home Air Force Base, was intoxicated and passed out in a room he rented from Jagerstatter’s house on 13th Street North after a night of drinking. Sometime after he passed out from intoxication, the court documents state, the victim woke up and saw Jagerstatter kneeling beside his bed moving toward him attempting oral sex.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

OREGON
The Register-Guard

By Jack Moran
The Register-Guard

A Lane County grand jury has returned a 10-count indictment against a Eugene priest who was arrested earlier this month for alleged sex and drug crimes involving an underage girl.

Daniel James MacKay, 42, pleaded not guilty to the charges — nine misdemeanors and one felony — Wednesday morning in Lane County Circuit Court.

He faces four prostitution charges that accuse him of offering to pay for sex; four charges of endangering the welfare of a minor, for allegedly causing an underage girl to “witness an act of sexual conduct”; one count of sexual misconduct, for allegedly having sex with the girl; and one count of attempting to use a minor in the commission of a controlled substance offense, for allegedly trying to use the girl to help him traffic cocaine.

All of the alleged crimes occurred in September.

Prosecutors initially filed four charges against MacKay after his Oct. 12 arrest. The original charging document included single counts of prostitution, endangering the welfare of a minor, sexual misconduct and using a minor in the commission of a controlled substance offense.

MacKay spent one day in the Lane County Jail after police arrested him. He was bailed out on Oct. 13.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

PENNSYLVANIA
The Morning Call

Bill White

House Bill 1947 is dead for this legislative session.

The landmark bill extending Pennsylvania’s criminal and civil statutes of limitations for child sex abuse survivors achieved a remarkable degree of consensus, considering how many years similar bills have been buried in committees by legislators cowed by Catholic Church and Insurance Federation lobbying pressure.

But it ultimately fell victim to the unwillingness of Senate leaders to allow a vote on retroactive access to civil lawsuits for child sex abuse survivors blocked by current and past statutes of limitations.

After a strong compromise version of HB 1947 passed the House 180-15 this spring, the retroactive portion of the bill was removed in the Senate Judiciary Committee, which also added a weird preamble laying out its claims that civil radioactivity is unconstitutional. The Senate passed that watered down bill, presenting House leaders and the bill’s advocates with a difficult decision:

Should they accept the weaker bill, which nonetheless constituted a big improvement on present statutes, and address retroactivity again next session? Or should they rewrite the bill again, removing the unacceptable preamble and restoring retroactivity, knowing it was unlikely the Senate would vote on such a bill again this session?

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

NEW JERSEY
New Jersey 101.5

By Sergio Bichao October 26, 2016

A poker-playing Catholic priest in New Jersey has been stripped of his duties after being arrested Friday on charges of possessing and sharing images of child sexual abuse.

Kevin Gugliotta, 54, of Mahwah, is facing 20 counts of possession of child pornography and 20 counts of distributing child pornography.

The charges were filed by prosecutors in Wayne County in Pennsylvania, where Gugliotta kept a vacation home.

Investigators said they received reports that child porn had been uploaded to an internet chat room from an IP address that was traced to Gugliotta’s address.

Gugliotta had been assigned to the Holy Spirit Roman Catholic Church in Union Township after serving at the Church of the Immaculate Conception in Mahwah. He also worked at St. Barthololmew the Apostle in Scotch Plains.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

PENNSYLVANIA
Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests

For immediate release: Wednesday, Oct. 26, 2016

Statement by David Clohessy of St. Louis, Director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (314 566 9790, 314 645 5915 home, davidgclohessy@gmail.com

A former priest who was convicted of child sex crimes in the Scranton diocese is up for parole. We hope he’s kept in prison. We call on Scranton’s top Catholic official, Bishop Joseph Bambera, to aggressively reach out to anyone who may have information or suspicions about his crimes.

And we hope this news prompts others who may have seen, suspected or suffered his crimes to call police so he might be charged with and convicted on other offenses and be kept away from kids even longer.

[New York Daily News]

[Wayne Independent]

In March 2008, Steven Wolpert pled guilty to involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, a felony, with an eight year old in 2006 and 2007 in Hawley Borough, PA. He was sentenced in June 2008 to nine to 18 years in prison.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

PENNSYLVANIA
WNEP

OCTOBER 26, 2016, BY DAN RATCHFORD

GOULDSBORO — A Catholic priest is charged in Wayne County with 40 counts of child pornography.

Prosecutors say Fr. Kevin Gugliotta, 54, of Mahwah, New Jersey had images of child porn on a computer at a home he owns in Gouldsboro.

Detectives say Gugliotta is a priest with a Roman Catholic Church in Union, New Jersey.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

PENNSYLVANIA
WABC

AP

HONESDALE, Pa. — A Roman Catholic priest from New Jersey has been charged in Pennsylvania with uploading child pornography to an internet chat room. His lawyer is attacking the probe and says the priest will “vigorously” defend himself.

The Rev. Kevin Gugliotta of Mahwah is charged with 20 counts of possession of child pornography and 20 counts of dissemination of child pornography. He was arrested last week in Toms River, New Jersey, and is being held pending extradition to Pennsylvania.

Wayne County District Attorney Janine Edwards said Wednesday the images were uploaded from an internet address registered to Gugliotta in Gouldsboro, Pennsylvania.

Gugliotta’s attorney, Jim Swetz, says it doesn’t appear investigators recovered the device Gugliotta allegedly used.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

NEW JERSEY/PENNSYLVANIA
Patch

By Daniel Hubbard (Patch Staff) – October 26, 2016

A Roman Catholic priest from Mahwah has been arrested on 40 child sexual abuse counts for allegedly possessing and disseminating child pornogaphy, authorities announced Wednesday.

Kevin A. Gugliotta, 54, was charged with 20 counts of possession of child pornography and 20 counts of dissemination of child pornography, the result of a multi-county and multi-state investigation, Janine Edwards, Wayne County Pennsylvania District Attorney said in a news release.

Gugliotta serves as a priest at Holy Spirit Roman Catholic Church in Union, Edwards said.

Gugliotta was charged as the result of an investigation that began in August when detectives in Monroe County, Pennsylvania, received a report of child pornography being uploaded to an internet chat room from a specific IP address, which was registered to Gugliotta, who had a residence in Lehigh Township, Pennsylvania.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

NEW JERSEY
NJ.com

By Jeff Goldman | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

MAHWAH — A Roman Catholic priest from New Jersey has been arrested on child pornography charges.

Kevin Gugliotta, 54, of Mahwah allegedly uploaded illicit images from a computer in his vacation home in Lehigh Township, Pa. on July 9, the Wayne County District Attorney said in a news release on Wednesday.

Gugliotta worked at Holy Spirit Roman Catholic Church in Union, but has been removed from the parish, according to a spokesman for the Newark Archdiocese.

He faces 40 counts of sexual abuse of children — 20 counts of possession of child pornography and 20 counts of dissemination of child pornography.

Officials in Wayne County learned about the uploaded images in August and began an investigation. They eventually learned the IP address was registered to Gugliotta’s vacation home.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

AUSTRALIEN
Katholisch

Die Polizei hat den ranghöchsten australischen Katholiken, Kardinal George Pell, im Vatikan wegen Missbrauchsvorwürfen vernommen. Der 75 Jahre alte Pell habe alle Vorwürfe zurückgewiesen, teilte die australische Polizei im Bundesstaat Victoria auf Nachfrage des Senders ABC am Mittwoch mit.

Der Vatikan will sich nicht näher zu den Missbrauchsvorwürfen äußern. Jenseits dessen, was der Papst und Pell selbst zu diesem Thema bereits gesagt hätten, gebe es keinen Kommentar, erklärte Vatikansprecher Greg Burke am Mittwoch vor Journalisten.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

DEUTSCHLAND
Welt

[Sexual abuse has been reported at the Protestant orphanage in Harburg.]

Mitte der 80er-Jahre sollen in einem evangelischen Hamburger Kinderheim mehrere Kinder sexuell missbraucht worden sein. Ans Licht brachten dies die Aussagen zweier ehemaliger Bewohnerinnen.

Von Denis Fengler, Jana Werner | Stand: 25.10.2016

n von Erziehern und anderen Verantwortlichen sollen Kinder und Jugendliche Anfang der 1980er-Jahre in einem kirchlichen Kinderheim in Harburg möglicherweise über Jahre von älteren Mitbewohnern sexuell missbraucht worden sein. Diese Vorwürfe haben zwei ehemalige Bewohnerinnen des Margaretenhorts erhoben. Der Kirchenkreis Hamburg-Ost, Träger der Einrichtung, der die Missbrauchsvorwürfe am gestrigen Dienstag öffentlich machte, will Betroffenen umfangreiche Hilfe bieten. „Uns ist es ernst mit der Aufarbeitung“, sagt Kirchenkreis-Sprecher Remmer Koch.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

DEUTSCHLAND
Kirche Hamburg

[Several cases of sexual abuse have been reported during the 1980s at the former children’s home Margaret Hort in Harburg.The parish of East Hamburg asks victims to come forward, offering them pastoral conversation, therapy and legal advice.]

Harburg – In dem früheren Kinderheim Margaretenhort in Harburg hat es Anfang der 80er Jahre offenbar mehrere Fälle von sexuellem Missbrauch gegeben. Der Kirchenkreis Hamburg-Ost bittet Betroffene, sich zu melden und bietet ihnen seelsorgerliche Gespräche, Therapien und juristische Beratung an.

Die Aussagen von zwei ehemaligen Bewohnerinnen seien glaubwürdig und plausibel, sagte Pröpstin Ulrike Murmann am Dienstag. Danach seien mehrere Mädchen und Jungen aus ihrer Gruppe von älteren Jugendlichen in der Einrichtung über längere Zeit sexuell missbraucht worden. Der Margaretenhort ist eine Jugendhilfeeinrichtung. Mehrheitsgesellschafter ist der Kirchenkreis Hamburg-Ost.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.

DEUTSCHLAND
Leonberger-Kreitszeitung

Von Franziska Kleiner 21.10.2016

Korntal-Münchingen – Regensburg ist Hunderte Kilometer von Korntal entfernt, und doch strahlt die Aufarbeitung des Missbrauchsskandals bei den Regensburger Domspatzen auch ins Strohgäu aus. „Es ist gut, nach Regensburg zu schauen“, sagt etwa der Missbrauchsbeauftragte der Bundesregierung, Johannes-Wilhelm Rörig.

Vor wenigen Tagen hat dort das aus Kirchen- und Opfervertretern bestehende Aufarbeitungsgremium ein Konzept vorgestellt, wie den Opfern von sexueller und körperlicher Gewalt in Regensburg geholfen werden kann. „Es ist sehr wichtig, dass man Antworten gibt und dadurch Verantwortung formuliert wird“, sagt Rörig über die Transparenz, die mit dem Zwischenbericht in den Aufarbeitungsprozess gebracht wurde. Rörig bezeichnete das Konzept bundesweit als „Meilenstein der Aufarbeitung“. Er würdigte zudem den gegenseitigen Respekt der Beteiligten.

Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.