Priest abused every young boy at regional Victorian school, inquiry hears, - Rabbi sentenced to six and a half years prison term for voyeurism, Reduced Child Abuse Sentence Causes Uproar in Argentina

Child abuse royal commission: Priest abused every young boy at regional Victorian school, inquiry hears
By court reporter Peta Carlyon  5/12/15

A notorious paedophile priest abused every boy at a regional Victorian school between the age of 10 and 16, the child sex abuse inquiry has heard.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse is holding long-awaited public hearings in Ballarat to examine historical abuse suffered by children at a number of schools in the regional centre, at the hands of Catholic clergy and other members of the Church.

Some of Australia's most notorious abusers were part of a paedophile ring operating in and around Ballarat for years, including Gerald Ridsdale, Robert Best and Edward Dowlan.

In her opening address, Senior Counsel Assisting the Commission, Gail Furness SC, outlined the extent of Ridsdale's offending.

She said the inquiry would hear evidence of Ridsdale's time at the Mortlake parish during the early 1980s, including comments from the priest who took over from Ridsdale.

"Father Dennehy told the Catholic church's insurance investigator that he thought every male child between the ages of 10 years and 16 years, who were at the school, had been molested by Ridsdale," she said.

Ms Furness said Ridsdale was a "prolific offender" during his time at Mortlake....

Ridsdale is serving an eight-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to 30 child sex offences in 2014.

It is the fourth time he has been jailed after three previous stints in prison for more than 100 other offences....
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-05-19/child-abuse-inquiry-begins-ballarat-hearings/6479902 


Rabbi sentenced to six and a half years prison term for voyeurism
May 18, 2015 By Mike McDaniel, News Reporter
This is a news release from the U.S. Department of Justice.
Bernard "Barry" Freundel, 63, of Washington D.C., a rabbi who had worked for a Jewish congregation in Washington, D.C., was sentenced today to a prison term of six years and six months on 52 counts of voyeurism stemming from a series of incidents between 2009 and 2014 in which he secretly took video recordings of women preparing for a Jewish ritual bath....

The National Capital Mikvah has two changing/showering rooms connected to the room with the ritual bath.  On numerous occasions between early 2009 and October 2014, the defendant installed and maintained electronic recording devices in the larger of the two changing/showering rooms.  Freundel did so for the sole purpose of secretly and surreptitiously recording women who were using the bathroom and shower; these women were totally and partially undressed before and/or after showering.  The women recorded did not know they were being recorded and did not consent to being recorded.....

In addition to the 52 recordings that were the subject of the plea, computer forensic examinations revealed that Freundel secretly and surreptitiously recorded approximately 100 additional women totally or partially undressed before and/or after showering in the large bathroom at the National Capital Mikvah between 2009 and September 2014.  These women did not know that they were being recorded and did not consent to being recorded....
http://www.wdam.com/story/29090052/rabbi-sentenced-to-six-and-a-half-years-prison-term-for-voyeurism


Reduced Child Abuse Sentence Causes Uproar in Argentina
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina — May 18, 2015 
Associated Press

Two Argentine judges are under fire for reducing the sentence of a convicted child abuser on the grounds that his 6-year-old victim had suffered earlier abuse and therefore had already been traumatized.

In the newly publicized 2014 ruling, the judges cut the sentence of Mario Tolosa, a sports club vice president, from six years to 38 months. They ruled that his acts should not be considered "gravely outrageous" in legal terms because the boy already "was making a precocious choice" of his sexuality, apparently a reference to homosexuality.

Other attorneys criticized the decision and the Argentine Federation of Lesbians, Gays, Bisexuals and Trans has demanded the judges be removed from the bench for a ruling it said placed a 6-year-old victim "in the position of a suspect."

One of the two judges, Horacio Piombo, defended the ruling Monday in interviews with Radio La Red and the television station Todo Noticias, saying that before Tolosa molested him, the child already had suffered "the initiation by his father into the worst of worlds, leading him to depravation."

He said that "as a result of that experience with the father, the child had showed "signs of a transvestite conduct, of conduct we had to take into account."....

Interior Minister Florencio Randazzo, who is running for the presidency, said via Twitter that the ruling was "an embarrassment."

"It's repugnant to say that the presumed sexual orientation of an abused six-year-old boy is a reason to reduce the sentence of the abuser."
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/reduced-child-abuse-sentence-uproar-argentina-31129194