Attorney Jeff Anderson will announce a settlement agreement Monday in the landmark public nuisance lawsuit against the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis and the Diocese of Winona, according to a source with knowledge of the announcement.
The settlement will include an agreement for how church officials will handle future allegations of abuse, the source said. Vicar General Charles Lachowitzer and Auxiliary Bishop Andrew Cozzens, both of the Twin Cities archdiocese, are slated to attend the news conference at the Landmark Center in St. Paul. Victims of abuse have also been invited.
Anderson said Monday that the agreement will require ongoing disclosure to his law firm and the public about abuse cases. He said that the agreement is more extensive than a deal reached years earlier with St. John’s Abbey about its handling of clergy abuse claims.
Anderson had filed the suit in Ramsey County last year on behalf of a man who said he was sexually abused as a child by the Rev. Thomas Adamson in the late 1970s. Adamson, who served in the Twin Cities archdiocese and the Winona diocese, is no longer a priest.
The lawsuit accused the Twin Cities archdiocese and the Winona diocese of creating a public nuisance by keeping information on abusive priests secret. Anderson and his colleague Mike Finnegan argued in court that the secrecy placed children at risk of abuse from unknown offenders.
Those claims were bolstered by an MPR News investigation last fall that showed top church officials continued to protect priests accused of abuse. One priest, the Rev. Clarence Vavra, had privately admitted to sexually abusing a child on an Indian reservation in South Dakota in the 1970s. MPR News found him living half a block from a school. In another case, Harry Walsh, a former priest who was accused of abusing two children, had been hired by Wright County to teach sex ed to at-risk teenagers.
Archbishop John Nienstedt and former Archbishop Harry Flynn did not notify police or the public about the allegations against Vavra and Walsh and kept other clerics in ministry despite allegations of sexual misconduct, according to documents obtained by MPR News. Flynn and Nienstedt also gave special monthly payments to priests who had admitted to sexually assaulting children.
The lawsuit filed by Anderson led to the court-ordered disclosure in December of the names of priests flagged by church officials for “credible” allegations of child sex abuse.
The broad public nuisance claim also forced church officials to testify under oath and turn over decades of documents that showed a widespread cover-up of clergy sex abuse. Unlike a standard negligence case, the public nuisance argument allowed Anderson to obtain more than 50,000 pages from the files of every priest accused of abuse dating back decades — over the objections of a team of church lawyers who argued that the information was not relevant and could ruin the reputations of innocent men.
The documents include handwritten notes from high-ranking church officials, letters from victims demanding that church officials remove perpetrators from ministry, psychological evaluations of several priests and other documents dating from the 1970s to mid-2014.
Over the past several months, Anderson has released several of the files and has said he plans to release more in the coming weeks. However, as of last week, Anderson could only release files on so-called “credibly accused” priests. The rest of the files — on priests not considered “credibly accused” by church officials — remain under seal.
The lawsuit is one of dozens of cases filed after state lawmakers passed the Child Victims Act in May 2013. The law eliminated the civil statute of limitations for new cases of child sex abuse. It also gave victims three years to file lawsuits for past abuse. The window for past cases expires in mid-2016.
Prior to the law’s passage, victims had to file lawsuits before age 24. Since most victims don’t come forward for years, the old law effectively shielded Catholic organizations from most clergy sex abuse litigation.
Over the past year, some parishioners have withheld donations out of fear that the money could be used for abuse lawsuits, and the Twin Cities archdiocese and the Winona diocese are considering filing for bankruptcy, according to documents and interviews with former high-ranking church officials.
However, both Catholic organizations have insurance that will likely cover a significant portion of financial settlements and attorneys’ fees.
Prosecutors have not filed criminal charges against church officials for failing to report a suspected child sex abuse to police or social services providers, despite a state law that requires priests, teachers, medical professionals and others to report recent allegations of abuse.
Minnesota’s Child Victims Act
Today’s settlement is part of the first lawsuit brought under Minnesota’s Child Victims Act, which was enacted in May 2013. The Child Victims Act:
• Lifts the civil statute of limitations for new cases of sexual abuse against children
• Gives victims three years (beginning in May 2013) to file lawsuits for past abuse
• Forbids lawsuits for past abuse after the three-year window expires in mid-2016
Before the Child Victims Act was passed, Minnesota state law, as interpreted by its Supreme Court, required victims of child sexual abuse to file any lawsuits before they reach age 24.
Many victims of sexual abuse and their supporters say that is not enough time. Victims often keep abuse secret for decades, and it can take years to realize that other problems, such as intimacy issues, depression or drug addiction, stem from childhood sexual abuse.
Notwithstanding any other provision of law, in the case of alleged sexual abuse of an individual under the age of 18, if the action would otherwise be time-barred under a previous version of Minnesota Statutes, section 541.073, or other time limit, an action for damages against a person, as defined in Minnesota Statutes, section 541.073, subdivision 1, clause (2), may be commenced no later than three years following the effective date of this section. This paragraph does not apply to a claim for vicarious liability or respondeat superior, but does apply to other claims, including negligence.
The case: An alleged victim of the Rev. Thomas Adamson sued the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, the Diocese of Winona and Adamson for negligence and creating a public nuisance that puts children at risk.
http://sol-reform.com/News/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Hamilton-Logo.jpg00SOL Reformhttp://sol-reform.com/News/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Hamilton-Logo.jpgSOL Reform2014-10-13 23:25:402014-10-15 00:00:11Madeleine Baran, Priest sex abuse lawsuit settlement reached in Twin Cities, Winona, MPR News
http://sol-reform.com/News/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Hamilton-Logo.jpg00SOL Reformhttp://sol-reform.com/News/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Hamilton-Logo.jpgSOL Reform2014-10-12 23:10:232014-10-12 23:10:23Tuesday, October 21, 2014 at 7PM: The Epidemic of Sexual Abuse in our Schools and Universities at the NYU Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute (click to RSVP)
OCTOBER 12, 2014 LAST UPDATED: SUNDAY, OCTOBER 12, 2014, 11:23 AM
BY ABBOTT KOLOFF AND JEFF GREEN
STAFF WRITERS
The impact of dozens of sex-abuse allegations against North Jersey priests has reached just about every corner of the region since 2002, when victims say they became emboldened to step forward because of an unfolding national sex-abuse scandal in the Roman Catholic Church.
A review by The Record of dozens of cases since 2002 shows at least 21 North Jersey municipalities have been affected in some way, including Englewood, Fair Lawn, Ho-Ho-Kus, Mahwah, Montvale, Oradell, Ridgewood, Ridgefield, Ridgefield Park, Rochelle Park, Paramus, Rutherford, Wyckoff, Park Ridge, Fairview, Edgewater, Paterson, Passaic, Clifton, Wayne and Pequannock. In many cases the priests were subjects of credible allegations, and in a few, priests were convicted of crimes. In rare instances, priests have been cleared of any wrongdoing.
Officials from the Newark and Paterson dioceses say they have removed at least 30 priests from active ministry and defrocked seven of them because of such allegations since 2002, when they say they changed their policies as part of a national bishops’ initiative. The clerics often had moved from parish to parish, spreading the impact beyond the communities where alleged sex abuse took place.
Twelve years later, church officials say they have made great strides in the way they handle abuse cases. Some top church officials admitted in 2002 that they kept quiet about some cases of abuse. That year, they agreed in a document called the Dallas Charter to provide more information to parishioners and the public.
Still, victims’ advocates say the Catholic Church often remains too secretive about what happens to priests who are removed from ministries because of sex-abuse accusations, including where they are living. Accused priests who have not been defrocked typically continue to receive pensions. In at least one case in North Jersey, a defrocked priest receives a stipend because he is destitute.
Nationally, a John Jay College study found that 4,392 priests have been accused of child sex abuse in the U.S. between 1950 and 2002, about 4 percent of the priests that served during that time. The study also found that 10,667 children allegedly were abused during that time.
Last week, Stephen Marlowe, 48, of Hoboken held a news conference in Trenton to announce a lawsuit against the Archdiocese of Newark over allegations that a Rutherford priest, who died in 1988 and has been the subject of a separate settlement, abused him 40 years ago. His attorney said he first asked church officials to settle the case not only by giving his client money, but by providing access to the priest’s personnel records. As in almost every case of priest sex abuse, the attorney said, Marlowe was denied access to records.
“They want to know what happened,” Marlowe’s attorney, Greg Gianforcaro, said last week about the victims. “That is a lot more important than any financial remedy.”
Church officials have released priests’ records only in scattered cases across the nation, despite pressure from victims’ advocates. Last year, as part of a civil settlement, the Los Angeles Archdiocese made public 12,000 pages of files showing church officials concealed sex abuse crimes from police.
Over the past year, several North Jersey cases have raised questions about the way accused priests are monitored by church officials, the most famous being Michael Fugee, the former Wyckoff priest who broke an agreement with the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office never to work with children. There also have been reports about other accused Newark Archdiocese priests living quietly at the St. John Vianney Residence for Retired Priests in Rutherford.
James Goodness, spokesman for Archbishop John J. Myers, said church officials tell parishioners about the removal of priests and refer all accusations to law enforcement. But he said the diocese typically does not reveal additional details. “I don’t discuss anything related to actions taken against particular priests for particular reasons,” he said.
The archdiocese has declined to discuss actions taken against priests who apparently allowed Fugee to have access to children. Authorities have said the priest worked with youth ministries in Monmouth County and Nutley and heard children’s confessions in Rochelle Park, Paramus and elsewhere.
Myers acknowledged in the wake of those allegations that church officials are not equipped to monitor accused clerics. He had allowed Fugee, who has since been defrocked, to continue in active ministry despite his confession that he abused a teenage boy in Wyckoff.
The archdiocese’s stance is in contrast with the Paterson Diocese, where church officials announced the removal of a popular Wayne pastor this year for allowing a former Newark Archdiocese priest accused of sexually abusing children to attend a parish family festival.
But even in the Paterson Diocese, information is sometimes slow to become public. Church officials said last week that they are still waiting for Rome to defrock a priest, the former head of a Passaic high school in the 1970s, 10 years after he was removed from ministry.
In 2002, during the height of the sex-abuse scandal, Paterson Diocese officials were under scrutiny for the way they handled several high-profile cases. Bishop Frank Rodimer, who retired in 2004, issued an apology following published reports that he had failed to report abuse cases to law enforcement.
Rodimer acknowledged that he sent one priest, James Hanley, to work in a Wayne parish after learning of sex-abuse allegations against the cleric. He defended his decision to allow another priest, William Cramer, to continue working at St. Joseph’s Medical Center in Paterson even though the cleric pleaded guilty years before to criminal child endangerment charges. After the Dallas Charter was signed, Hanley, who has admitted to molesting at least a dozen children, was defrocked and Cramer was removed from ministry.
Ken Mullaney, the Paterson Diocese attorney, said that church officials are now quick to act, not only on allegations of abuse but on any appearance of impropriety. He said it was “unacceptable” that Monsignor Christopher DiLella did not ask an accused sex offender to leave the parish family function in Wayne.
But while the Paterson Diocese has been open about the way it handles such cases, Mullaney said he would not make public the location of accused priests, as some victims advocates have demanded, because it could lead to them being harassed and forced to move from place to place, perhaps becoming homeless.
“They would be hounded out of their residences by mobs carrying pitchforks and torches,” he said. “That’s not something that should happen.”
In 2006, Hanley, who admitted to molesting at least a dozen children in Pequannock, Mendham and elsewhere, moved out of a Paterson residence after victims showed up and announced his presence to the neighborhood. Hanley later was arrested after allegedly threatening a Secaucus hotel employee with a baseball bat. He now lives at an undisclosed location.
“We know where Hanley is,” Mullaney said, adding that the priest receives a stipend from the diocese because he is destitute. Hanley does not receive a pension because he has been defrocked, Mullaney said.
Other priests who have been stripped of their ministries but have not been defrocked continue to receive pensions, Mullaney said. The diocese has removed about 10 priests from ministry since 2002 and has asked church officials in Rome to defrock three of them.
The Paterson Diocese is still waiting for Rome to complete the process in the case of the Rev. Ronald Tully, who was criminally charged with sexually abusing two boys from Passaic while they were at his Long Island home decades ago. The diocese has paid at least $1.9 million to eight people who have made allegations against Tully. In the 1970s, Tully was head of Pope Pius XII High School, which no longer exists.
Paterson Bishop Arthur Serratelli, as he was taking over from Rodimer in 2004, removed Tully from his position as pastor of a church in Morris County. Church officials acknowledged at the time that Tully should have been removed in 2002 after the signing of the Dallas Charter, which required removing priests after one credible allegation of child sex abuse.
They said at the time that until Serratelli examined it, Tully’s case slipped through the cracks, perhaps because of the way it had been adjudicated. The criminal charges were dismissed as part of a probation program. In 2007, diocese officials said Tully had agreed to be defrocked in a process known as laicization. Last week, they said the paperwork hadn’t been sent to Rome until another five years had passed.
Mullaney explained the delay by saying one priest is assigned to compile laicization documents and that the files often are more than six inches thick. He said the documents were sent to Rome in March 2012, adding that it still seems to be taking a long time for Rome to respond. Tully, who has been living outside of Buffalo, N.Y., did not respond to a message seeking comment.
http://sol-reform.com/News/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Hamilton-Logo.jpg00SOL Reformhttp://sol-reform.com/News/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Hamilton-Logo.jpgSOL Reform2014-10-12 22:06:102014-10-12 22:06:10Abbott Koloff and Jeff Green, Priest abuse allegations reach many North Jersey towns, NorthJersey.com
Allison Leotta Novelist, Former Federal Sex-Crimes Prosecutor
Tonight’s SVU shone a light on the darkest corner of Hollywood’s casting couch, where kids vying for roles are sexually abused and passed around by moguls and producers.
Recap:
In the wake of a hit-and-run, Nick arrests Tensley Evans, a beautiful but troubled starlet resembling Lindsey Lohan. When she falsely accuses Nick of propositioning her, SVU gets involved. Dashcam video exonerates poor Nick, but car trouble is just the tip of Tensley’s iceberg.
While in rehab, she performed oral sex on a 15-year-old boy. Tensley, who’s in her 20s, is charged with statutory rape (although the boy protests, “It was the best experience of my life!”). But our SVU experts are familiar with “the short path between victim and suspect.” Turns out, Tensley molests others because she was molested.
A powerful producer named Adam auditioned her on the proverbial casting couch when she was 13. Then he passed her around to his friends, coercing her to have sex with them too. Adam did this to a bunch of kids, even procuring underwater sex acts, which led to one girl’s death in a swimming pool.
Our detectives wants to prosecute Adam, but he’s wily. The statute of limitations has run on his older rapes. And in recent years, he only made movies — and “auditioned” girls — in states where the age of consent is 16 and “mistake of age” is a defense.
Although Adam thoroughly researched states’ law, he forgot to consider the feds. He went to Canada to have sex with a pretty 16-year-old actress, confident because the age of consent in Canada is 16. But U.S. federal law makes it a crime to travel to another country for the purpose of having sex with a person under 18. Adam is finally arrested and hauled away by the U.S. Marshals.
Tensley does a glowing (but premature) victory lap on Hoda Kotb’s talk show.
Verdict: B+
What They Got Right:
No one’s exactly sure how Lindsey got to where she is, but sex abuse in Hollywood is a real and serious problem. Corey Feldman, a child actor who, as an adult, revealed that he had been repeatedly sexually abused by powerful men in the industry, reportedly said, “I can tell you that the No. 1 problem in Hollywood was and is and always will be pedophilia … It’s the big secret.”
Alison Arngrim, a former Little House on the Prairie star, agreed: “This has been going on for a very long time,” she said. “It was the gossip back in the ’80s. People said, ‘Oh yeah, the Coreys, everyone’s had them.’ People talked about it like it was not a big deal… The word was that they were given drugs and being used for sex. It was awful — these were kids, they weren’t 18 yet.”
Hollywood, with its glittering promise of fame and fortune held in the hands of a few powerful men, is ripe for corruption when eager young kids come looking to make their way.
Speaking of corrupt patriarchal organizations, SVU was correct about what’s holding up the expansion of statutes of limitation for sexual assault. Although many reformers advocate longer periods, the Catholic Church has spent a small fortune trying to keep state legislatures from expanding the time in which past sex crimes can be prosecuted.
Dashcam footage has been providing incredible evidence in jurisdictions around the country. Sometimes, like tonight, it can exonerate a cop who’s falsely accused. And sometimes, it can do the opposite. Check out this chilling video of a cop shooting an unarmed man during a traffic stop.
This episode authentically portrayed the different attitudes about sex with a 15-year-old girl versus a 15-year-old boy. For her, it’s a traumatic crime. For him, it’s a Facebook brag. Is the difference in biology or in how we’re socialized? Whatever the answer, it’s the same crime under the law.
Traveling to another country for the purpose of having sex with a person under 18-years-old is a federal crime.SVU presented an interesting legal issue, where the foreign country’s laws allowed consent at 16. But the American sex tourism prohibitions would trump. Nice legal research, SVU! And nice plot twist. Getting Adam — who murdered a girl — on an iffy traveler’s case is kind of like getting Al Capone for tax evasion.
What They Got Wrong:
Maybe Olivia was distracted by all the baby gear and nanny-planning, but there’s no way she should have assigned Nick to investigate Tensley’s case. Tensley accused him of misconduct! He has every reason to want to send her to jail. Somebody teach that baby to say, “Conflict of interest, Mama.”
In the final scene, Tensley sat on Hoda’s spotless white couch, all apple-cheeked and rehabilitated — but she’s still being prosecuted. Adam’s arrest didn’t make her legal woes disappear. She’s still on the hook for having sex with that 15-year-old boy — the only thing that’s changed for her, legally, is that she may present the evidence of Adam’s abuse as mitigation for her actions at her own sentencing hearing.
Adam’s wily plan for abusing young actresses was pretty far-fetched. Sex abuse in Hollywood is a crime of opportunity. I’ve never heard of a producer filming movies in specific locations in order cherry pick their statutory rape laws. First off, he’d have to hire a lawyer to do a 50-state survey, and that would be expensive and … awkward. Second, what if you need a tropical harbor scene? Adam’s not going to find that in Montana.
Finally, it was a bit insincere for SVU to condemn a culture that exploits teenage actresses in wet bikinis, while delivering for your viewing pleasure a bunch of teenage actresses in wet bikinis. When will Ice-T have a scene in a Speedo?
http://sol-reform.com/News/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Hamilton-Logo.jpg00SOL Reformhttp://sol-reform.com/News/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Hamilton-Logo.jpgSOL Reform2014-10-09 22:49:542014-10-12 22:50:03Allison Leotta, 'SVU' Explores Sex Abuse in Hollywood, Huffington Post
Connecticut Boarding School Target Of New Sexual Abuse Allegations
A former student at the Indian Mountain boarding school in Salisbury has filed a federal lawsuit alleging that the school’s former headmaster ordered him to live in the basement of his home so that he could sexually assault him at will in the 1980s.
The 19-page lawsuit filed this week at U.S. District Court in New Haven by William Brewster Brownville paints the private boarding prep school for mostly teenage boys as a den of sexual abuse and names at least six former teachers or administrators who either participated in or were aware that then-Headmaster Peter Carleton was “a pedophile who preyed and had for years been preying on vulnerable children in the school’s care.”
Brownville is seeking more than $75,000 in damages from the school. Although The Courant does not usually identify sexual abuse accusers, Brownville is named in the lawsuit.
Attorney Antonio Ponvert III, who is representing Brownville, said that his client is coming forward now to try to take control of his life, deal with the demons in his past and hopefully shine a light on the issue for others to follow.
“This was a nest of pedophiles who were allowed to operate for a long period of time with nothing being done to stop them,” Ponvert said. “He is tired of suffering and his hope is that the potentially hundreds of others who have suffered in silence for so long will come forward.”
The lawsuit contains the latest sexual abuse allegations involving the school. In 1996, The Courant exposed a string of sexual abuse allegations against Christopher Simonds, a teacher at the school. The allegations against Simonds surfaced after the criminal statute of limitations had expired, and he was never charged. None of the individuals accused in any of the lawsuits still works at the school.
The new lawsuit alleges that Brownville, when he was 13, was also abused by Simonds.
State police conducted a two-year investigation in 1992 and 1993 after receiving complaints of sexual abuse. The state police report on that investigation concluded that children at the school, some as young as 12, reported being given illegal drugs and cigarettes as a way of manipulating them into having sex with their teachers.
The report said that many staff members suspected that some of the middle school’s students — in grades 5 through 9 — were being abused, but for various reasons no one made a report with police. Eventually, five lawsuits were filed and settled out of court.
Carleton was the headmaster at the school from 1977 to 1987 during the time that state police concluded there were numerous reports of sexual abuse. The Indian Mountain School has been open since 1922 and is a private K-9 school in the Lakeville section of Salisbury.
Carleton was not accused of abuse in the lawsuits filed in the late 1990s but was accused of failing to stop it. Carleton died in 1996.
The current lawsuit alleges that Carleton was an active participant in rampant sexual abuse and that, among other things, he routinely walked through the shower area commenting on boys’ genitals, showed boys pornographic movies such as “Caligula” and plied them with whiskey while encouraging them to masturbate.
The lawsuit claims that when Brownville was 15, in 1986, he and three other boys were ordered to live in the basement of Carleton’s on-campus home. At least once a week during the three months that he lived there, Carleton would call him upstairs to his bedroom and sexually abuse him, the lawsuit alleges.
The lawsuit alleges that Brownville was called upstairs and abused at least 15 times. On at least three of those occasions, Carleton’s wife got into bed with them and sexually touched and groped Brownville while offering him a Valium, the lawsuit alleges.
The lawsuit also alleges that Carleton had been making boys live in his basement for years, rotating four new ones in every semester. The lawsuit alleges that many administrators and members of the board of trustees were aware of Carleton’s actions but did nothing to stop them.
The lawsuit quotes Paul Levin, the former president of the school’s board of trustees, as saying that Carleton’s behavior was bizarre for a headmaster.
“[Carleton] was very interested in what the boys and girls might be doing with each other sexually. It was very bizarre for a headmaster to talk that way,” Levin is quoted as saying. The lawsuit doesn’t indicate when or to whom the quote was made.
“Carleton was definitely very kinky. We used to kind of wince and think he was trying to be funny,” Levin said. “There’s a certain kind of person who gets away with murder through charm.”
Current Indian Mountain Headmaster Mark A. Devey said that school officials were “shocked and disheartened” by the allegations.
“Because our first priority is to protect the health, safety, and well-being of the students here, it is deeply disturbing to learn that 30 years ago a student at IMS might have been abused,” he said. “We are looking into these allegations and we take them very seriously.”
http://sol-reform.com/News/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Hamilton-Logo.jpg00SOL Reformhttp://sol-reform.com/News/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Hamilton-Logo.jpgSOL Reform2014-10-08 22:51:272014-10-12 23:00:54Dave Altimari, Connecticut Boarding School Target Of New Sexual Abuse Allegations, The Courant
Each month Fox43 and York Traditions Bank are teaming up for a segment we call “Her Perspective.” Once a month we talk with women who are making an impact here in our community. Monday we talked to Kristen Pfautz Woolley, clinical director and founder of Turning Point Counseling.
Madeleine Baran, Priest sex abuse lawsuit settlement reached in Twin Cities, Winona, MPR News
/in Minnesota, MN Post Window /by SOL ReformPriest sex abuse lawsuit settlement reached in Twin Cities, Winona
http://www.mprnews.org/story/
Attorney Jeff Anderson will announce a settlement agreement Monday in the landmark public nuisance lawsuit against the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis and the Diocese of Winona, according to a source with knowledge of the announcement.
The settlement will include an agreement for how church officials will handle future allegations of abuse, the source said. Vicar General Charles Lachowitzer and Auxiliary Bishop Andrew Cozzens, both of the Twin Cities archdiocese, are slated to attend the news conference at the Landmark Center in St. Paul. Victims of abuse have also been invited.
Anderson said Monday that the agreement will require ongoing disclosure to his law firm and the public about abuse cases. He said that the agreement is more extensive than a deal reached years earlier with St. John’s Abbey about its handling of clergy abuse claims.
Anderson had filed the suit in Ramsey County last year on behalf of a man who said he was sexually abused as a child by the Rev. Thomas Adamson in the late 1970s. Adamson, who served in the Twin Cities archdiocese and the Winona diocese, is no longer a priest.
The lawsuit accused the Twin Cities archdiocese and the Winona diocese of creating a public nuisance by keeping information on abusive priests secret. Anderson and his colleague Mike Finnegan argued in court that the secrecy placed children at risk of abuse from unknown offenders.
Those claims were bolstered by an MPR News investigation last fall that showed top church officials continued to protect priests accused of abuse. One priest, the Rev. Clarence Vavra, had privately admitted to sexually abusing a child on an Indian reservation in South Dakota in the 1970s. MPR News found him living half a block from a school. In another case, Harry Walsh, a former priest who was accused of abusing two children, had been hired by Wright County to teach sex ed to at-risk teenagers.
Archbishop John Nienstedt and former Archbishop Harry Flynn did not notify police or the public about the allegations against Vavra and Walsh and kept other clerics in ministry despite allegations of sexual misconduct, according to documents obtained by MPR News. Flynn and Nienstedt also gave special monthly payments to priests who had admitted to sexually assaulting children.
The lawsuit filed by Anderson led to the court-ordered disclosure in December of the names of priests flagged by church officials for “credible” allegations of child sex abuse.
The broad public nuisance claim also forced church officials to testify under oath and turn over decades of documents that showed a widespread cover-up of clergy sex abuse. Unlike a standard negligence case, the public nuisance argument allowed Anderson to obtain more than 50,000 pages from the files of every priest accused of abuse dating back decades — over the objections of a team of church lawyers who argued that the information was not relevant and could ruin the reputations of innocent men.
The documents include handwritten notes from high-ranking church officials, letters from victims demanding that church officials remove perpetrators from ministry, psychological evaluations of several priests and other documents dating from the 1970s to mid-2014.
Over the past several months, Anderson has released several of the files and has said he plans to release more in the coming weeks. However, as of last week, Anderson could only release files on so-called “credibly accused” priests. The rest of the files — on priests not considered “credibly accused” by church officials — remain under seal.
The lawsuit is one of dozens of cases filed after state lawmakers passed the Child Victims Act in May 2013. The law eliminated the civil statute of limitations for new cases of child sex abuse. It also gave victims three years to file lawsuits for past abuse. The window for past cases expires in mid-2016.
• Minnesota’s Child Victims Act at a glance
Prior to the law’s passage, victims had to file lawsuits before age 24. Since most victims don’t come forward for years, the old law effectively shielded Catholic organizations from most clergy sex abuse litigation.
Over the past year, some parishioners have withheld donations out of fear that the money could be used for abuse lawsuits, and the Twin Cities archdiocese and the Winona diocese are considering filing for bankruptcy, according to documents and interviews with former high-ranking church officials.
However, both Catholic organizations have insurance that will likely cover a significant portion of financial settlements and attorneys’ fees.
Prosecutors have not filed criminal charges against church officials for failing to report a suspected child sex abuse to police or social services providers, despite a state law that requires priests, teachers, medical professionals and others to report recent allegations of abuse.
Minnesota’s Child Victims Act
Today’s settlement is part of the first lawsuit brought under Minnesota’s Child Victims Act, which was enacted in May 2013. The Child Victims Act:
• Lifts the civil statute of limitations for new cases of sexual abuse against children
• Gives victims three years (beginning in May 2013) to file lawsuits for past abuse
• Forbids lawsuits for past abuse after the three-year window expires in mid-2016
Before the Child Victims Act was passed, Minnesota state law, as interpreted by its Supreme Court, required victims of child sexual abuse to file any lawsuits before they reach age 24.
Many victims of sexual abuse and their supporters say that is not enough time. Victims often keep abuse secret for decades, and it can take years to realize that other problems, such as intimacy issues, depression or drug addiction, stem from childhood sexual abuse.
The law:
The evolution of the law:
• Feb. 2013: Child Victims Act is proposed
• May 1, 2013: Passes the House with 115 votes in favor, 7 opposed
• May 8, 2013: Unanimously passes the Senate
• May 29, 2013: St. Paul attorney Jeff Anderson files the first lawsuit under the Child Victims Act: Doe 1 v. Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, Diocese of Winona and Thomas Adamson
The case: An alleged victim of the Rev. Thomas Adamson sued the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, the Diocese of Winona and Adamson for negligence and creating a public nuisance that puts children at risk.
Tuesday, October 21, 2014 at 7PM: The Epidemic of Sexual Abuse in our Schools and Universities at the NYU Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute (click to RSVP)
/in New York /by SOL ReformAbbott Koloff and Jeff Green, Priest abuse allegations reach many North Jersey towns, NorthJersey.com
/in New Jersey /by SOL ReformPriest abuse allegations reach many North Jersey towns
The impact of dozens of sex-abuse allegations against North Jersey priests has reached just about every corner of the region since 2002, when victims say they became emboldened to step forward because of an unfolding national sex-abuse scandal in the Roman Catholic Church.
A review by The Record of dozens of cases since 2002 shows at least 21 North Jersey municipalities have been affected in some way, including Englewood, Fair Lawn, Ho-Ho-Kus, Mahwah, Montvale, Oradell, Ridgewood, Ridgefield, Ridgefield Park, Rochelle Park, Paramus, Rutherford, Wyckoff, Park Ridge, Fairview, Edgewater, Paterson, Passaic, Clifton, Wayne and Pequannock. In many cases the priests were subjects of credible allegations, and in a few, priests were convicted of crimes. In rare instances, priests have been cleared of any wrongdoing.
Officials from the Newark and Paterson dioceses say they have removed at least 30 priests from active ministry and defrocked seven of them because of such allegations since 2002, when they say they changed their policies as part of a national bishops’ initiative. The clerics often had moved from parish to parish, spreading the impact beyond the communities where alleged sex abuse took place.
Twelve years later, church officials say they have made great strides in the way they handle abuse cases. Some top church officials admitted in 2002 that they kept quiet about some cases of abuse. That year, they agreed in a document called the Dallas Charter to provide more information to parishioners and the public.
Still, victims’ advocates say the Catholic Church often remains too secretive about what happens to priests who are removed from ministries because of sex-abuse accusations, including where they are living. Accused priests who have not been defrocked typically continue to receive pensions. In at least one case in North Jersey, a defrocked priest receives a stipend because he is destitute.
Nationally, a John Jay College study found that 4,392 priests have been accused of child sex abuse in the U.S. between 1950 and 2002, about 4 percent of the priests that served during that time. The study also found that 10,667 children allegedly were abused during that time.
Last week, Stephen Marlowe, 48, of Hoboken held a news conference in Trenton to announce a lawsuit against the Archdiocese of Newark over allegations that a Rutherford priest, who died in 1988 and has been the subject of a separate settlement, abused him 40 years ago. His attorney said he first asked church officials to settle the case not only by giving his client money, but by providing access to the priest’s personnel records. As in almost every case of priest sex abuse, the attorney said, Marlowe was denied access to records.
“They want to know what happened,” Marlowe’s attorney, Greg Gianforcaro, said last week about the victims. “That is a lot more important than any financial remedy.”
Church officials have released priests’ records only in scattered cases across the nation, despite pressure from victims’ advocates. Last year, as part of a civil settlement, the Los Angeles Archdiocese made public 12,000 pages of files showing church officials concealed sex abuse crimes from police.
Over the past year, several North Jersey cases have raised questions about the way accused priests are monitored by church officials, the most famous being Michael Fugee, the former Wyckoff priest who broke an agreement with the Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office never to work with children. There also have been reports about other accused Newark Archdiocese priests living quietly at the St. John Vianney Residence for Retired Priests in Rutherford.
James Goodness, spokesman for Archbishop John J. Myers, said church officials tell parishioners about the removal of priests and refer all accusations to law enforcement. But he said the diocese typically does not reveal additional details. “I don’t discuss anything related to actions taken against particular priests for particular reasons,” he said.
The archdiocese has declined to discuss actions taken against priests who apparently allowed Fugee to have access to children. Authorities have said the priest worked with youth ministries in Monmouth County and Nutley and heard children’s confessions in Rochelle Park, Paramus and elsewhere.
Myers acknowledged in the wake of those allegations that church officials are not equipped to monitor accused clerics. He had allowed Fugee, who has since been defrocked, to continue in active ministry despite his confession that he abused a teenage boy in Wyckoff.
The archdiocese’s stance is in contrast with the Paterson Diocese, where church officials announced the removal of a popular Wayne pastor this year for allowing a former Newark Archdiocese priest accused of sexually abusing children to attend a parish family festival.
But even in the Paterson Diocese, information is sometimes slow to become public. Church officials said last week that they are still waiting for Rome to defrock a priest, the former head of a Passaic high school in the 1970s, 10 years after he was removed from ministry.
In 2002, during the height of the sex-abuse scandal, Paterson Diocese officials were under scrutiny for the way they handled several high-profile cases. Bishop Frank Rodimer, who retired in 2004, issued an apology following published reports that he had failed to report abuse cases to law enforcement.
Rodimer acknowledged that he sent one priest, James Hanley, to work in a Wayne parish after learning of sex-abuse allegations against the cleric. He defended his decision to allow another priest, William Cramer, to continue working at St. Joseph’s Medical Center in Paterson even though the cleric pleaded guilty years before to criminal child endangerment charges. After the Dallas Charter was signed, Hanley, who has admitted to molesting at least a dozen children, was defrocked and Cramer was removed from ministry.
Ken Mullaney, the Paterson Diocese attorney, said that church officials are now quick to act, not only on allegations of abuse but on any appearance of impropriety. He said it was “unacceptable” that Monsignor Christopher DiLella did not ask an accused sex offender to leave the parish family function in Wayne.
But while the Paterson Diocese has been open about the way it handles such cases, Mullaney said he would not make public the location of accused priests, as some victims advocates have demanded, because it could lead to them being harassed and forced to move from place to place, perhaps becoming homeless.
“They would be hounded out of their residences by mobs carrying pitchforks and torches,” he said. “That’s not something that should happen.”
In 2006, Hanley, who admitted to molesting at least a dozen children in Pequannock, Mendham and elsewhere, moved out of a Paterson residence after victims showed up and announced his presence to the neighborhood. Hanley later was arrested after allegedly threatening a Secaucus hotel employee with a baseball bat. He now lives at an undisclosed location.
“We know where Hanley is,” Mullaney said, adding that the priest receives a stipend from the diocese because he is destitute. Hanley does not receive a pension because he has been defrocked, Mullaney said.
Other priests who have been stripped of their ministries but have not been defrocked continue to receive pensions, Mullaney said. The diocese has removed about 10 priests from ministry since 2002 and has asked church officials in Rome to defrock three of them.
The Paterson Diocese is still waiting for Rome to complete the process in the case of the Rev. Ronald Tully, who was criminally charged with sexually abusing two boys from Passaic while they were at his Long Island home decades ago. The diocese has paid at least $1.9 million to eight people who have made allegations against Tully. In the 1970s, Tully was head of Pope Pius XII High School, which no longer exists.
Paterson Bishop Arthur Serratelli, as he was taking over from Rodimer in 2004, removed Tully from his position as pastor of a church in Morris County. Church officials acknowledged at the time that Tully should have been removed in 2002 after the signing of the Dallas Charter, which required removing priests after one credible allegation of child sex abuse.
They said at the time that until Serratelli examined it, Tully’s case slipped through the cracks, perhaps because of the way it had been adjudicated. The criminal charges were dismissed as part of a probation program. In 2007, diocese officials said Tully had agreed to be defrocked in a process known as laicization. Last week, they said the paperwork hadn’t been sent to Rome until another five years had passed.
Mullaney explained the delay by saying one priest is assigned to compile laicization documents and that the files often are more than six inches thick. He said the documents were sent to Rome in March 2012, adding that it still seems to be taking a long time for Rome to respond. Tully, who has been living outside of Buffalo, N.Y., did not respond to a message seeking comment.
Email: koloff@northjersey.com
http://www.northjersey.com/news/priest-abuse-allegations-reach-many-north-jersey-towns-1.1107525
Allison Leotta, ‘SVU’ Explores Sex Abuse in Hollywood, Huffington Post
/in New York /by SOL Reform‘SVU’ Explores Sex Abuse in Hollywood
Tonight’s SVU shone a light on the darkest corner of Hollywood’s casting couch, where kids vying for roles are sexually abused and passed around by moguls and producers.
Recap:
In the wake of a hit-and-run, Nick arrests Tensley Evans, a beautiful but troubled starlet resembling Lindsey Lohan. When she falsely accuses Nick of propositioning her, SVU gets involved. Dashcam video exonerates poor Nick, but car trouble is just the tip of Tensley’s iceberg.
While in rehab, she performed oral sex on a 15-year-old boy. Tensley, who’s in her 20s, is charged with statutory rape (although the boy protests, “It was the best experience of my life!”). But our SVU experts are familiar with “the short path between victim and suspect.” Turns out, Tensley molests others because she was molested.
A powerful producer named Adam auditioned her on the proverbial casting couch when she was 13. Then he passed her around to his friends, coercing her to have sex with them too. Adam did this to a bunch of kids, even procuring underwater sex acts, which led to one girl’s death in a swimming pool.
Although Adam thoroughly researched states’ law, he forgot to consider the feds. He went to Canada to have sex with a pretty 16-year-old actress, confident because the age of consent in Canada is 16. But U.S. federal law makes it a crime to travel to another country for the purpose of having sex with a person under 18. Adam is finally arrested and hauled away by the U.S. Marshals.
Tensley does a glowing (but premature) victory lap on Hoda Kotb’s talk show.
Verdict: B+
What They Got Right:
No one’s exactly sure how Lindsey got to where she is, but sex abuse in Hollywood is a real and serious problem. Corey Feldman, a child actor who, as an adult, revealed that he had been repeatedly sexually abused by powerful men in the industry, reportedly said, “I can tell you that the No. 1 problem in Hollywood was and is and always will be pedophilia … It’s the big secret.”
Alison Arngrim, a former Little House on the Prairie star, agreed: “This has been going on for a very long time,” she said. “It was the gossip back in the ’80s. People said, ‘Oh yeah, the Coreys, everyone’s had them.’ People talked about it like it was not a big deal… The word was that they were given drugs and being used for sex. It was awful — these were kids, they weren’t 18 yet.”
Hollywood, with its glittering promise of fame and fortune held in the hands of a few powerful men, is ripe for corruption when eager young kids come looking to make their way.
Speaking of corrupt patriarchal organizations, SVU was correct about what’s holding up the expansion of statutes of limitation for sexual assault. Although many reformers advocate longer periods, the Catholic Church has spent a small fortune trying to keep state legislatures from expanding the time in which past sex crimes can be prosecuted.
Dashcam footage has been providing incredible evidence in jurisdictions around the country. Sometimes, like tonight, it can exonerate a cop who’s falsely accused. And sometimes, it can do the opposite. Check out this chilling video of a cop shooting an unarmed man during a traffic stop.
This episode authentically portrayed the different attitudes about sex with a 15-year-old girl versus a 15-year-old boy. For her, it’s a traumatic crime. For him, it’s a Facebook brag. Is the difference in biology or in how we’re socialized? Whatever the answer, it’s the same crime under the law.
Traveling to another country for the purpose of having sex with a person under 18-years-old is a federal crime. SVU presented an interesting legal issue, where the foreign country’s laws allowed consent at 16. But the American sex tourism prohibitions would trump. Nice legal research, SVU! And nice plot twist. Getting Adam — who murdered a girl — on an iffy traveler’s case is kind of like getting Al Capone for tax evasion.
What They Got Wrong:
Maybe Olivia was distracted by all the baby gear and nanny-planning, but there’s no way she should have assigned Nick to investigate Tensley’s case. Tensley accused him of misconduct! He has every reason to want to send her to jail. Somebody teach that baby to say, “Conflict of interest, Mama.”
In the final scene, Tensley sat on Hoda’s spotless white couch, all apple-cheeked and rehabilitated — but she’s still being prosecuted. Adam’s arrest didn’t make her legal woes disappear. She’s still on the hook for having sex with that 15-year-old boy — the only thing that’s changed for her, legally, is that she may present the evidence of Adam’s abuse as mitigation for her actions at her own sentencing hearing.
Adam’s wily plan for abusing young actresses was pretty far-fetched. Sex abuse in Hollywood is a crime of opportunity. I’ve never heard of a producer filming movies in specific locations in order cherry pick their statutory rape laws. First off, he’d have to hire a lawyer to do a 50-state survey, and that would be expensive and … awkward. Second, what if you need a tropical harbor scene? Adam’s not going to find that in Montana.
Finally, it was a bit insincere for SVU to condemn a culture that exploits teenage actresses in wet bikinis, while delivering for your viewing pleasure a bunch of teenage actresses in wet bikinis. When will Ice-T have a scene in a Speedo?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/
Dave Altimari, Connecticut Boarding School Target Of New Sexual Abuse Allegations, The Courant
/in Connecticut, Georgia, New York /by SOL ReformConnecticut Boarding School Target Of New Sexual Abuse Allegations
A former student at the Indian Mountain boarding school in Salisbury has filed a federal lawsuit alleging that the school’s former headmaster ordered him to live in the basement of his home so that he could sexually assault him at will in the 1980s.
The 19-page lawsuit filed this week at U.S. District Court in New Haven by William Brewster Brownville paints the private boarding prep school for mostly teenage boys as a den of sexual abuse and names at least six former teachers or administrators who either participated in or were aware that then-Headmaster Peter Carleton was “a pedophile who preyed and had for years been preying on vulnerable children in the school’s care.”
Brownville is seeking more than $75,000 in damages from the school. Although The Courant does not usually identify sexual abuse accusers, Brownville is named in the lawsuit.
Attorney Antonio Ponvert III, who is representing Brownville, said that his client is coming forward now to try to take control of his life, deal with the demons in his past and hopefully shine a light on the issue for others to follow.
“This was a nest of pedophiles who were allowed to operate for a long period of time with nothing being done to stop them,” Ponvert said. “He is tired of suffering and his hope is that the potentially hundreds of others who have suffered in silence for so long will come forward.”
The lawsuit contains the latest sexual abuse allegations involving the school. In 1996, The Courant exposed a string of sexual abuse allegations against Christopher Simonds, a teacher at the school. The allegations against Simonds surfaced after the criminal statute of limitations had expired, and he was never charged. None of the individuals accused in any of the lawsuits still works at the school.
The new lawsuit alleges that Brownville, when he was 13, was also abused by Simonds.
State police conducted a two-year investigation in 1992 and 1993 after receiving complaints of sexual abuse. The state police report on that investigation concluded that children at the school, some as young as 12, reported being given illegal drugs and cigarettes as a way of manipulating them into having sex with their teachers.
The report said that many staff members suspected that some of the middle school’s students — in grades 5 through 9 — were being abused, but for various reasons no one made a report with police. Eventually, five lawsuits were filed and settled out of court.
Carleton was the headmaster at the school from 1977 to 1987 during the time that state police concluded there were numerous reports of sexual abuse. The Indian Mountain School has been open since 1922 and is a private K-9 school in the Lakeville section of Salisbury.
Carleton was not accused of abuse in the lawsuits filed in the late 1990s but was accused of failing to stop it. Carleton died in 1996.
The current lawsuit alleges that Carleton was an active participant in rampant sexual abuse and that, among other things, he routinely walked through the shower area commenting on boys’ genitals, showed boys pornographic movies such as “Caligula” and plied them with whiskey while encouraging them to masturbate.
The lawsuit claims that when Brownville was 15, in 1986, he and three other boys were ordered to live in the basement of Carleton’s on-campus home. At least once a week during the three months that he lived there, Carleton would call him upstairs to his bedroom and sexually abuse him, the lawsuit alleges.
The lawsuit alleges that Brownville was called upstairs and abused at least 15 times. On at least three of those occasions, Carleton’s wife got into bed with them and sexually touched and groped Brownville while offering him a Valium, the lawsuit alleges.
The lawsuit also alleges that Carleton had been making boys live in his basement for years, rotating four new ones in every semester. The lawsuit alleges that many administrators and members of the board of trustees were aware of Carleton’s actions but did nothing to stop them.
The lawsuit quotes Paul Levin, the former president of the school’s board of trustees, as saying that Carleton’s behavior was bizarre for a headmaster.
“[Carleton] was very interested in what the boys and girls might be doing with each other sexually. It was very bizarre for a headmaster to talk that way,” Levin is quoted as saying. The lawsuit doesn’t indicate when or to whom the quote was made.
“Carleton was definitely very kinky. We used to kind of wince and think he was trying to be funny,” Levin said. “There’s a certain kind of person who gets away with murder through charm.”
Current Indian Mountain Headmaster Mark A. Devey said that school officials were “shocked and disheartened” by the allegations.
“Because our first priority is to protect the health, safety, and well-being of the students here, it is deeply disturbing to learn that 30 years ago a student at IMS might have been abused,” he said. “We are looking into these allegations and we take them very seriously.”
Copyright © 2014, Hartford Courant
Allison Oskin, Her Perspective: “Turning Point Counseling”, WPMT FOX43
/in Uncategorized /by SOL ReformEach month Fox43 and York Traditions Bank are teaming up for a segment we call “Her Perspective.” Once a month we talk with women who are making an impact here in our community. Monday we talked to Kristen Pfautz Woolley, clinical director and founder of Turning Point Counseling.
For more information: turningpointyork.com
http://fox43.com/2014/10/06/her-perspective-turning-point-counseling/