ABUSE TRACKER

• Summary

• Catholic charitable order faced 94 lawsuits
• Alleged abuse occurred at least 27 years ago
• Franciscan Friars listed up to $50 million in liabilities

Jan 2 (Reuters) – The Franciscan Friars of California, a Roman Catholic organization devoted to serving the poor, has filed for bankruptcy after facing nearly 100 lawsuits related to decades-old sex abuse claims.

The Oakland, California-based organization said in a Tuesday statement that it was driven to bankruptcy by a change in California state law that allowed sex abuse survivors to file decades-old complaints that were otherwise time-barred under the state’s statute of limitations.

The Franciscan Friars of California joins a growing wave of Roman Catholic organizations that have filed for bankruptcy to address sex abuse lawsuits.

Most of the 94 lawsuits filed against the Franciscan Friars were filed in California, where a 2019 law revived older sex abuse claims and led to the bankruptcies of the Catholic dioceses…

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The Roman Catholic order of the Franciscans is facing 94 claims involving events that took place between 1940 and 1996. Most of the accused are now dead

The Franciscan Friars of California have joined a long list of religious orders and dioceses to file for bankruptcy to face an avalanche of legal cases involving sex abuse against minors committed decades ago. The Roman Catholic organization filed for Chapter 11 on December 31, in a restructuring that allows the organization to meet its financial obligations in the face of 94 claims of sexual abuse against its friars. The alleged crimes occurred between 1940 and 1996. The Franciscans, who announced the move this Tuesday, stated that most of the accused have died and that only six are still alive.

Provincial minister Father David Gaa, the head of the order in the United States, said the decision to file for bankruptcy…

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Bruxy Cavey was previously charged with sexual assault in June 2022

The former pastor of The Meeting House — an Ontario megachurch — is facing two more sexual assault charges, CBC Hamilton has learned.

Hamilton police Const. Krista-Lee Ernst told CBC Hamilton Bruxy Cavey was charged with two counts of sexual assault on Dec. 22.

Ernst didn’t say what prompted the new charges or provide detail about when the alleged assaults took place, but wrote in an email on Thursday afternoon that Cavey will appear in court in January. 

Cavey, who was the primary teaching pastor at The Meeting House and worked there from 1996 to 2021, was charged with sexual assault in June 2022. He was 57 when he was first charged.

The Meeting House church is headquartered in Oakville, Ont., but has locations throughout the province. It also streams its Sunday service at several cinemas in southern Ontario.

CBC Hamilton contacted Cavey and the church for…

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“This wasn’t just about Epstein. This was also about all those who permitted, profited, and participated in his crimes. It’s time for transparency and exposure.” – Jeff Anderson

(New York, NY) – Tomorrow, over 150 Individuals mentioned in court documents regarding the late financier Jeffrey Epstein will be publicly exposed. We applaud Judge Loretta A. Preska and courageous survivor Virginia Roberts Giuffre for making this valuable disclosure happen.

When these names surface, we hope that every single person who ever turned a blind eye to child sex crimes will pick up the phone, regardless of how long ago the wrongdoing may have happened, and tell the police, prosecutors, and journalists what they believe they know about crimes against children.

“Epstein’s trail of abuse only continued as long as it did because there were so many people in positions of power, money, and influence that participated and permitted it. Transparency about the…

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List could be released as soon as Tuesday after deadline for objections to unsealing of names passes midnight Monday

Nearly 200 names connected to the Jeffrey Epstein-Ghislaine Maxwell sex trafficking conspiracy could be released by a New York judge as soon as Tuesday, exposing or confirming the identities of dozens of associates of the disgraced financier that until now have only been known as John and Jane Does in court papers.

A deadline for objections to the unsealing of name passes at midnight on Monday, nearly nine years after victim Virginia Giuffre filed a single defamation claim against Maxwell, daughter of the late British press baron Robert Maxwell, in 2015, that in turn produced the names in legal depositions.

A year later, in 2016, US district court judge Robert Sweet rejected Maxwell’s motion to dismiss the case, finding that “the veracity of a contextual world of facts…

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Former President Clinton, Prince Andrew and others are expected to be named.

Hundreds of sealed court filings pertaining to the late sex-offender Jeffrey Epstein are set to be made public this week, and several prominent names — including Britain’s Prince Andrew and former President Bill Clinton — are expected to appear in the documents.

U.S. District Judge Loretta Preska ruled earlier this month there was no legal justification for continuing to conceal the ex-president’s name and more than 150 names other “John and Jane Does” mentioned in the records. Preska ordered the unsealing to begin after Jan. 1.

The documents stem from a 2015 civil lawsuit centered on allegations that Epstein’s one-time paramour, Ghislaine Maxwell, facilitated the sexual abuse of Virginia Giuffre, an alleged trafficking victim. Giuffre also accused Epstein and Maxwell of directing her to have sex with Prince Andrew and several other prominent men. Prince Andrew denied the allegations and…

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The nation’s largest Protestant denomination has settled a sexual abuse lawsuit against one of its prominent leaders who had been accused of allegedly molesting young men for decades. Retired Texas Judge Paul Pressler, a Southern Baptist lay leader long considered a hero of the denomination by many, was one of the architects of the rightward shift that took control of the Southern Baptist Convention in the 1980s and 1990s.

In 2017, Pressler’s former assistant, Gareld Duane Rollins Jr., sued the lay leader and conservative activist along with the Southern Baptist Convention and several of its entities, alleging that Pressler had begun abusing him while he was a teenager in a Bible study at a Houston church. The suit accused SBC leaders of knowing about Pressler’s alleged abuse and covering it up.

Earlier this year, former SBC leader Paige Patterson (a close ally of Pressler) and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary (which Patterson…

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