ABUSE TRACKER

ALBANY (NY)
Times Union

September 30, 2019

By Cayla Harris

But lawyers say priests’ personnel files should be a matter of public record

About a month before the Child Victims Act went into effect, the Albany Diocese created a new position – a “process manager” – to oversee the handling of child abuse complaints.

Shortly after the opening of the act’s one-year look-back window – which temporarily allows survivors of all ages to sue their alleged abusers – the diocese also hired a second investigative firm to help internally probe accusations of misconduct. Now, the diocese is exploring digital record-keeping alternatives to dated stacks of paper files.

It’s just a sampling of the steps local dioceses across the state have taken to examine allegations, many of them new, of child sex abuse in the 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.

BRIDGEPORT (CT)
Associated Press

October 1, 2019

By Dave Collins

Past Roman Catholic leaders in Bridgeport, Connecticut, including eventual New York Cardinal Edward Egan, were often hostile toward people who alleged clergy sexual abuse and merely transferred many accused priests thus allowing them to continue their misconduct, an independent report released Tuesday found.

Current Bridgeport Bishop Frank Caggiano ordered an investigation last year into priests’ sexual abuse of minors dating to the diocese’s founding in 1953 in an effort to obtain a full accounting of the wrongdoing, detail how church leaders responded and increase transparency for lay members. Former Connecticut state Judge Robert Holzberg laid out his findings in a news conference Tuesday.

The yearlong review found that 281 people — mostly males between 5 and 18 — were abused by 71 priests since the diocese’s founding in 1953. Holzberg said there probably are many more victims who could not be identified because church records were destroyed. The diocese has spent about $56 million settling victims’ lawsuits.

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WHEELING (WV)
The Intelligencer and Wheeling News-Register

September 30, 2019

By Joselyn King

A second lawsuit alleging sexual harassment by former bishop Michael Bransfield has been filed in Ohio County Circuit Court.

Attorney Robert Warner of Charleston filed the complaint in mid-September on behalf of a client identified only as V.G.D., a recent seminarian in the diocese. Warner filed and later settled a similar lawsuit earlier this year for client J.E., also a young seminarian who served as Bransfield’s secretary.

Both lawsuits allege incidents of sexual harassment by Bransfield and call out the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston for negligence in reporting allegations of sexual misconduct by those associated with the church.

“We cannot comment on pending litigation, but we do plan to address the suit in the proper forum,” diocesan spokesman Tim Bishop said.

Warner did not immediately respond to requests for comment Monday.

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NEW YORK (NY)
Rockland/Westchester Journal News

September 30, 2019

By Frank Esposito

Every priest in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York who has a substantial sex-abuse accusation against him has been removed from ministry, according to a report released today.

That finding was revealed in a report by former federal judge and prosecutor Barbara Jones , who was tasked by Cardinal Timothy Dolan with studying the archdiocese’s handling of sex-abuse complaints.

Her findings show a near stop to all abuse in the archdiocese since the early 2000s.

“Almost all the complainants received over the last several years are not complaints of current conduct, but rather they are complaints about conduct which occurred sometimes decades ago,” Jones said.

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HARTFORD (CT)
Hartford Courant

October 1, 2019

By Dave Altimari and Amanda Blanco

A scathing report released Tuesday by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Bridgeport on the alleged sexual abuse of hundreds of victims by clergy since the early 1950s blames former bishops Edward Egan and Walter Curtis for violating state law and failing to respond to “an unfolding crisis.”

Despite hundreds of victims, church leaders knew of abuse since 1953 and were more concerned about protecting assets and avoiding “scandalous news articles” than protecting children and removing priests, the report found. The report, compiled by former state Superior Court Judge Robert Holzberg, stated that Egan took a “dismissive, uncaring, and at times threatening attitude toward survivors.”

“Bishops Curtis and Egan failed even to acknowledge, let alone comply with, their legal obligations arising from the 1971 state law mandating that priests report allegations of child sexual abuse,” the report states. Egan’s behavior “was profoundly unsympathetic, inadequate, and inflammatory.”

The report states that nearly 300 people were allegedly abused by approximately 71 priests. A small number of priests were responsible for much of the abuse. Holzberg said investigators have not identified any reports of abuse since 2008. Investigators interviewed more than 50 witnesses, survivors of clergy sexual abuse, current and former bishops, priests, lawyers and others.

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FRESNO (CA)
KIMA TV

Action News

September 30, 2019

Witnesses have begun testifying in the case against a former catholic priest who once worked in the Yakima Valley and is now facing charges of sexual abuse.

Jesus Antonio Castañeda-Serna is facing 20 counts including 16 counts of felony sexual battery against adult members of his church.

During the last few weeks, as part of a preliminary hearing, at least 5 witnesses shared their experiences in court. Several adults describing how they say Serna would abuse and molest them under the guise of spiritual authority.

Serna served as a catholic priest in Yakima from 1997 to 2005. He was suspended after allegations he revealed something that had been shared in the confessional.

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 HAVEN (CT)
New Haven Independent

September 25, 2019

By Christopher Peak

Rabbi Daniel Greer, one of New Haven’s most prominent religious figures, was led out of a courtroom in handcuffs Wednesday afternoon after a jury found him guilty of four counts of risk of injury to a minor in a high-profile child-rape case.

Jurors reached that verdict just before noon after a weeklong criminal trial in Connecticut Superior Court on Church Street.

The state brought the case against Greer based on the testimony of Eliyahu Mirlis, who claimed that Greer repeatedly raped him when he was a student at Greer’s Yeshiva of New Haven on Elm Street, from 2002 to 2005. Mirlis previously won a $21 million civil suit against Greer.

The four risk of injury charges that each carry a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison.

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NEW YORK (NY)
SNAP

September 30, 2019

The Archdiocese of New York today released the results of an “independent” investigation into their policies and procedures. While this report is ostensibly an attempt at transparency, it really feels like another move by church officials to handle allegations of abuse in house.

It is good that Judge Jones feels confident in her assessment and we truly hope that she did receive full access to personnel files, including those within the “bishops archives.” However, just last year in Buffalo another church official in New York claimed to have released all his information, too, and it was only thanks to a brave whistleblower that we learned that this was not the case. We hope that this is not the case in New York City.

In terms of Judge Jones’ recommendations, it is distressing to learn that reports of “sexual abuse from non-consenting adults” – carefully sanitized language for the crime of rape – or allegations of abuse by church staff or volunteers are not already included in the Archdiocese’s reporting requirements. These are obvious crimes that should be reported, and it is disappointing that it took a legal review by a judge in 2019 to make this plain. To us, someone who is in “full compliance” with the charter would already have gone the extra mile to include these crimes underneath the “zero-tolerance” umbrella.

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UNITED STATES
VICE

September 24, 2019

By Hella Winston; illustrated by Hunter French

Thanks to a new law, one of the most secretive and isolated subcultures in the United States is facing possible exposure.

Fourteen years ago, an anonymous blogger calling himself Un-Orthodox Jew (UOJ) lit a fuse in the ultra-Orthodox Jewish world when he began posting sexual abuse allegations concerning a Brooklyn yeshiva teacher named Yehuda Kolko. As the blog’s hit counter climbed into the hundreds of thousands and the comments piled up, it became clear to anyone reading that Kolko’s alleged behavior spanned several decades and was not exactly a secret in his community. It had even been the subject of an inquiry by a religious court in the 1980s, a proceeding that reportedly was derailed by threats made by the head of the yeshiva where Kolko taught to the dozen or so people who had come forward to give testimony. (Among ultra-orthodox Jews, going to the police to “inform” (mesira) on another Jew was and largely remains taboo and can result in ostracization or worse.)

But until that day in 2005, nobody had ever discussed the details of the saga in a public forum.

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LAKEWOOD (NJ)
Asbury Park Press

September 26, 2019

By Gustavo Martínez Contreras

A rabbi at a Lakewood yeshiva has been named in a civil lawsuit alleging he and another rabbi repeatedly sexually molested a then 13-year-old boy when the youth studied at a Brooklyn yeshiva almost four decades ago.

Rabbi Joel Falk, 74, now principal of Hebrew studies at Cheder Toras Zev, at 1000 Cross St., is named in a claim brought by former Brooklyn Yeshiva Torah Temimah student Barach Sandhaus, 52, a Miami Beach-based businessman.

The lawsuit alleges that over a two-year period, Falk and Rabbi Joel Kolko, also employed at the Brooklyn school, would “inappropriately touch the penis and other parts of the plaintiff’s body.” The alleged abuse occurred between 1978 and 1980.

To see the full lawsuit, scroll to the bottom of this story.

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AUSTRALIA
ABC

September 24, 2019

“As long as you have priests, you will have children of Catholic priests.”

It has been an open secret for centuries. Catholic priests fathering children in breach of their vows of celibacy. But like other scandals it has faced, the Church has swept this issue under the carpet.

The children of priests have long suffered in silence and shame, their mothers pressured to keep quiet and keep the secret.

We follow the story of one Australian woman who discovered in middle age who her father was, and who’s determined to find out more.

“I remember thinking I can’t tell anybody. I now have to carry a secret”, she says. “Over a period of time, I realised…I can’t keep the secret and I need to step forward.”

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 (NY)
NY Post

September 24, 2019

By Susan Edelman

A rabbi once accused of sexually molesting a student in Brooklyn is now a principal at a New Jersey yeshiva — which touts his “wisdom and experience” on its website, The Post has learned.

Rabbi Joel Falk is named by a former Yeshiva Torah Temimah student in a new lawsuit, one of the first against a rabbi under New York’s Child Victims Act.

Baruch Sandhaus, now 52, claims Falk “would inappropriately touch” his penis in 1980, shortly after he started ninth grade at age 13, according to the lawsuit.

Falk, 74, who still lives in Brooklyn, now serves as the principal of Hebrew studies at Toras Zev, a Lakewood, N.J. yeshiva.

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DUBLIN (CA)
Bay Area News Group

September 27, 2019

By Angela Ruggiero

The Rev. David Mendoza-Vela took plea deal

DUBLIN — A Fremont priest accused of sexually assaulting a young teenager was sentenced to nearly five years in prison Friday.

Hector David Mendoza-Vela, also known as the Rev. David Mendoza-Vela, 42, was sentenced Friday at the East County Hall of Justice in Dublin to four years and eight months in prison after taking a plea deal in August.

He must also register as a sex offender for the rest of his life, and Judge Jon Rolefson ordered him to stay away from the victim, who was 14 years old at the time of the molestation, for 10 years, according to Alameda County Deputy District Attorney Colleen McMahon, who prosecuted his case.

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TAOS (NM)
Albuquerque Journal

September 2019

By Colleen Heild

Archbishop: Retired priest will not live at monastery

The evening of Sept. 14, Our Lady of Guadalupe Church in Taos held a “healing Mass” for victims of clergy sexual and other abuse.

The next day, an admitted child sex abuser priest from California attended another special parish function — this time to celebrate the opening of the new proposed Benedictine monastery on the grounds of church property —just across the street from a public elementary school. Archbishop of Santa Fe John C. Wester officiated.

More than 15 years ago, Milton Walsh, who is described as a retired priest who isn’t permitted to “present” himself as one, was indicted on charges of molesting a 13-yearold boy in Northern California in 1984. His criminal prosecution was dropped after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a California law that would have extended the statute of limitations on certain sex crimes against children.

The victim, a former altar boy, eventually received an out-of-court settlement in a civil lawsuit filed against the Archdiocese of San Francisco in 2003.

Back then, the church promised to keep Walsh away from children and in “academic” settings, the victim’s lawyer told the Journal this week. In recent years, lawyers who represent victims of clergy sexual abuse and track offenders have listed Walsh’s whereabouts and his access to children as “unknown.”

Now, questions have surfaced about his presence in Taos.

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HURON COUNTY (MI)
WJRT-TV, ABC12 News

September 30, 2019

A former Catholic priest is charged with indecent exposure in Huron County.

Police say Lawrence Ventline of Port Austin exposed himself at Murphy’s Bakery in Bad Axe earlier this summer. He faces up to a year in jail if convicted.

Earlier this year, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel accused Ventline of assaulting an 11-year-old child in the 1980s while he was a priest in the Detroit area. But because of the statute of limitations he hasn’t been charged.

Ventline has threatened to sue Nessel over the accusations.

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PENNSYLVANIA
ChurchMilitant.com (blog)

September 30, 2019

Vy Martina Moyski

Bp. David Zubik and diocese ‘have not learned from the lessons of the past’

The attorney general of Pennsylvania slammed the bishop of Pittsburgh on Thursday for dragging his feet on implementing the recommendations made in the grand jury report on clergy sex abuse issued over a year ago.

Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro called the response of Bp. David Zubik — and the diocese of Pittsburgh — to the report as lacking in “remorse” and “transparency.”

“Neither Bp. Zubik nor any of his colleagues across Pennsylvania have [responded], and that should be disappointing to all Pennsylvanians,” Shapiro said, adding, “We continue to see the Church throw up roadblocks when it comes to getting those people who were abused the support and assistance that they need.”

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NEW ORLEANS (LA)
Associated Press via Orlando Sentinel

September 30, 2019

By Jim Mustian

A man who says he was raped by a Roman Catholic deacon four decades ago while serving as an altar boy in New Orleans says he hopes the deacon’s arrest will “send a message to other pedophiles in the church that this should never happen again.”

“There’s no closing the book on this for me and the other people who have been molested,” the man told The Associated Press. “But there would be some reparation, some justice, by him being found guilty.”

The man spoke Thursday as he prepared to meet with local prosecutors about the case of George F. Brignac, a longtime schoolteacher and deacon who has faced a series of sexual abuse allegations amid a scandal that has roiled the Archdiocese of New Orleans. The AP does not usually identify victims of sex crimes.

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MELBOURNE (AUSTRALIA)
Australian Associated Press via 7news.com

September 25, 2019

By Marnie Banger

A retired Victorian priest will spend the next 14 months behind bars for molesting five boys decades ago in what has been branded a “monumental breach of trust”.

Peter Waters, 74, abused the boys in the 1970s and ’80s, sometimes after climbing into their beds.

Waters began grooming one boy after he entered the confessional booth to reveal the Catholic sin of masturbation.

When the boy stayed overnight with the priest during the 1980s, Waters molested him as he pretended to sleep.

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SYDNEY (AUSTRALIA)
Catholic News Service via CatholicPhilly.com

September 30, 2019

By Michael Sainsbury

[PHOTO: David Ridsdale, who was sexually abused by his uncle, Gerald Ridsdale, then a priest, stands next to fellow sexual abuse survivors in Rome March 3, 2016. Lawyers say the Australian Catholic Church has opened the floodgates for tens of millions dollars in compensation claims after the Diocese of Ballarat admitted, for the first time, it knew of the behavior of the pedophile priest, yet continued to move him around from parish to parish.]

Australia’s Ballarat Diocese will pay up to $3 million (US$2.03 million) in a landmark compensation claim for clerical sexual abuse after a victim, code name JCB, won an out-of-court settlement for abuse during the early 1990s by Gerald Ridsdale, a former priest.

The case was against Bishop Paul Bird of Ballarat, because of actions by two now-deceased bishops: Ronald Mulkearns and James O’Collins. The case was only allowed after the Australian government struck down the so-called Ellis defense, which held that the church was not a legal “person.” Ridsdale, 85, is serving as the latest in a string of multiyear prison sentences after being found guilty of abusing 85 children.

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HAYWARD (WI)
Associated Press via Hartford Courant

September 30, 2019

A former priest accused of sexually assaulting young boys in Wisconsin decades ago has been sentenced to 30 years in prison.

The Wausau Daily Herald reports that 72-year-old Thomas Ericksen received the maximum sentence Thursday on two charges of sexually assaulting young boys while stationed at St. Peter’s Catholic Church in Winter in the late 70s and early 80s. He must register as a sex offender for life.

Four men testified Thursday about how the assaults affected their lives. One of the victims went public for the first time.

Ericksen apologized to the victims in court and said he has come to realize the impact the assaults had on victims. At least 11 men claim they were abused by Ericksen during his time in the clergy.

Ericksen was removed from the priesthood in 1988.

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