Boy Scouts sued in sexual abuse case
A Santa Barbara County boy was sexually abused by his Scout leader in 2007. A judge overseeing the lawsuit brought by the boy's family has ordered the Boy Scouts to hand over confidential files detailing allegations of sexual abuse by Scout leaders around the nation.
By Kim Christensen, Los Angeles Times February 19, 2012
The mother of a Santa Barbara County teenager says he was wronged twice - once by the 450-pound Boy Scout leader who sexually abused him in 2007, and then by a local Scouts executive who she says told her not to call police.
"He said that wasn't necessary, because the Scouts do their own internal investigation," said the woman, whose name The Times is withholding to protect her son's identity. "I thought that was really weird.... I thought it was really important to call the sheriff right away."
So she did, triggering an investigation of volunteer Scout leader Al Steven Stein, then 29, who was charged with abusing her 92-pound son and two other boys. In 2009, he pleaded no contest to felony child endangerment. He was put on probation but later went to prison after authorities found pictures of nude children on his cellphone data card.
Stein's criminal case is closed....
Nor is it over for the Boy Scouts of America, which is being sued by the boy's family for negligence in a case whose ramifications could reach well beyond Santa Barbara.
The lawsuit contends the Scouts knew or should have known that Stein had put the boy at risk and cites the executive's reluctance to call police as evidence of an effort to conceal widespread sexual abuse....
In January, after reviewing some of the files, a Santa Barbara Superior Court judge rejected the Scouts' argument that the documents are irrelevant to the lawsuit and ordered the organization to turn over the most recent 20 years' worth of records to the boy's lawyers by Feb. 24, with victims' names removed. The judge ordered the lawyers not to disclose the files publicly.
Known as "ineligible volunteer files," the documents have been maintained since the 1920s and are intended to keep suspected molesters and others accused of misconduct out of Scouting. Scouts officials have steadfastly resisted releasing them and won't discuss their contents, citing the privacy rights of victims and the fact that many files are based on unproven allegations.
They strenuously dispute that the files have been used to conceal sexual abuse....
According to the lawsuit, Stein had a history of inappropriate behavior with children he'd met through Scouting, including "making sexual jokes and comments" in front of Scouts and in some cases pulling down their pants. In November 2007, he abused the Santa Barbara County boy, who was 13 at the time....
In early 2008, Stein was charged with a felony, committing a lewd act upon a child, and two misdemeanors including child pornography for photographs he took of a boy's genitals. Two of the victims were Scouts; the third was the son of a family friend.
Stein struck a deal to plead no contest to felony child endangerment and one misdemeanor. He was placed on five years' probation but violated it by having the photos of nude children on his cellphone card. He was sentenced to two years in prison but was paroled early and has been in no trouble since, said Steven Balash, his attorney in the criminal case and the lawsuit....
But the boy's mother said her son has been deeply affected, in part because other families from the troop accused him of lying or "hallucinating" about the abuse. He refuses to go out in public and is now tutored at home, she said....
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-scouts-20120219,0,5265678.story
Scouts to turn over files in Calif. sex abuse case
Associated Press 2/19/12
SANTA BARBARA, Calif. (AP) — A judge overseeing a lawsuit brought by the family of a California boy molested by his troop leader in 2007 has ordered the Boy Scouts of America to hand over confidential files detailing allegations of sexual abuse by Scout leaders around the nation....
The trial is scheduled for April, nearly five years after the boy, then 13, was molested by volunteer troop leader Al Stein at a Boy Scouts Christmas tree sale in Goleta. Stein pleaded no contest to felony child endangerment in 2009....
The lawsuit, which seeks unspecified damages, contends the Scouts knew or should have known that Stein had put the boy at risk and cites Tate's reluctance to call police as evidence of an effort to conceal widespread sexual abuse....
The boy's lawyers contend the files will expose the Scouts' "culture of hidden sexual abuse" and its failure to warn boys, their parents and others about pedophiles in the ranks of one of the nation's oldest youth organizations....
Some of the estimated 5,000 files have surfaced in recent years as a result of lawsuits by former Scouts accusing the organization of failing to exclude known pedophiles, detect abuses and report offenders to police, and allowing predators to remain at large.
http://news.yahoo.com/scouts-turn-over-files-calif-sex-abuse-case-201919674.html
Showing posts with label Sued. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sued. Show all posts
Sunday, February 19, 2012
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Pope slams cardinal who exposed abuse cover-up, controversial priest promoted
also:
Cavan religious order to be sued by American victims of paedophile priest (paedophile priest Fr Brendan Smyth)
Pope slams cardinal who exposed abuse cover-up Nicole Winfield, Associated Press
June 29, 2010 Vatican City - The Vatican on Monday issued an unprecedented rebuke of a top cardinal who had accused the retired Vatican No. 2 of blocking clerical sex abuse investigations, publicly dressing down a man who had been praised for his criticism of church abuse cover-ups. The silencing of Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn, the archbishop of Vienna and long considered a papal contender, drew heated criticism from clerical abuse victims. They said the Vatican should be honoring Schoenborn, not publicly humiliating him, for his calls for greater transparency and demands for a crackdown on priests who rape and sodomize children. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2010/06/29/MNRF1E68UI.DTL
Vatican promotes controversial Quebec priest Wed Jun 30, By The Canadian Press
VATICAN CITY - The Vatican has promoted Canada's highest-ranking Catholic priest despite recent controversy over his response to the church sex-abuse scandal. Marc Cardinal Ouellet has been named chief of the Vatican's powerful Congregations for Bishops, which vets bishop appointments around the world. Sixty-six year old Ouellet is the Archbishop of Quebec and the Roman Catholic Primate of Canada, the church's top official in the country. Earlier this month, a victims' group said Ouellet had refused to apologize for crimes committed within the church. http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/100630/national/crime_priest_ouellet
Cavan religious order to be sued by American victims of paedophile priest Ali Bracken, Crime Correspondent 6/27/10 THE NORBertine order in Co Cavan that deceased paedophile priest Fr Brendan Smyth was attached to is facing a multi-million dollar lawsuit in the US as two of his victims are suing over the sexual abuse he inflicted....Jeff Thomas was just seven years old in 1968 when Smyth began to abuse him in Rhode Island. Helen McGonigle was six years old when she was first assaulted by the priest in 1967. The abuse continued for three years. McGonigle's family, of Irish descent, were members of Our Lady of Mercy Catholic church in East Greenwich, Rhode Island, and it was here that they came into contact with Smyth.
A master manipulator, he infiltrated her family's daily life. He also sexually abused her older sister Kathleen under the pretence of preparing her for the sacrament of penance. Kathleen and her brother Gerard both died from drug overdoses as a result of the abuse Smyth perpetrated against them. Her mother also spent time in a mental institution. In 1994, Smyth was convicted of 17 counts of sexual abuse in a Belfast court. Three years later in Dublin, he pleaded guilty to another 74 counts of abuse. In 1997, Smyth died in prison.
http://www.tribune.ie/article/2010/jun/27/cavan-religious-order-to-be-sued-by-american-victi/
Cavan religious order to be sued by American victims of paedophile priest (paedophile priest Fr Brendan Smyth)
Pope slams cardinal who exposed abuse cover-up Nicole Winfield, Associated Press
June 29, 2010 Vatican City - The Vatican on Monday issued an unprecedented rebuke of a top cardinal who had accused the retired Vatican No. 2 of blocking clerical sex abuse investigations, publicly dressing down a man who had been praised for his criticism of church abuse cover-ups. The silencing of Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn, the archbishop of Vienna and long considered a papal contender, drew heated criticism from clerical abuse victims. They said the Vatican should be honoring Schoenborn, not publicly humiliating him, for his calls for greater transparency and demands for a crackdown on priests who rape and sodomize children. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2010/06/29/MNRF1E68UI.DTL
Vatican promotes controversial Quebec priest Wed Jun 30, By The Canadian Press
VATICAN CITY - The Vatican has promoted Canada's highest-ranking Catholic priest despite recent controversy over his response to the church sex-abuse scandal. Marc Cardinal Ouellet has been named chief of the Vatican's powerful Congregations for Bishops, which vets bishop appointments around the world. Sixty-six year old Ouellet is the Archbishop of Quebec and the Roman Catholic Primate of Canada, the church's top official in the country. Earlier this month, a victims' group said Ouellet had refused to apologize for crimes committed within the church. http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/100630/national/crime_priest_ouellet
Cavan religious order to be sued by American victims of paedophile priest Ali Bracken, Crime Correspondent 6/27/10 THE NORBertine order in Co Cavan that deceased paedophile priest Fr Brendan Smyth was attached to is facing a multi-million dollar lawsuit in the US as two of his victims are suing over the sexual abuse he inflicted....Jeff Thomas was just seven years old in 1968 when Smyth began to abuse him in Rhode Island. Helen McGonigle was six years old when she was first assaulted by the priest in 1967. The abuse continued for three years. McGonigle's family, of Irish descent, were members of Our Lady of Mercy Catholic church in East Greenwich, Rhode Island, and it was here that they came into contact with Smyth.
A master manipulator, he infiltrated her family's daily life. He also sexually abused her older sister Kathleen under the pretence of preparing her for the sacrament of penance. Kathleen and her brother Gerard both died from drug overdoses as a result of the abuse Smyth perpetrated against them. Her mother also spent time in a mental institution. In 1994, Smyth was convicted of 17 counts of sexual abuse in a Belfast court. Three years later in Dublin, he pleaded guilty to another 74 counts of abuse. In 1997, Smyth died in prison.
http://www.tribune.ie/article/2010/jun/27/cavan-religious-order-to-be-sued-by-american-victi/
Sunday, April 25, 2010
$18.5 million Boy Scouts case, The Man Who Sued the Pope
$18.5 Million in Liability for Scouts in Abuse Case
By WILLIAM YARDLEY April 23, 2010 PORTLAND, Ore. — The Boy Scouts of America were ordered Friday to pay $18.5 million in a lawsuit that has focused new attention on the secret files the Scouts keep to document claims of sexual abuse by troop leaders and volunteers....In Multnomah County Circuit Court on Friday, a jury found the Scouts liable for $18.5 million in punitive damages in a case brought by a man who was sexually abused by an assistant troop leader in the early 1980s, when the man was about 12. The verdict was by far the largest ever against the Scouts in a jury trial. The jury could have ordered the Scouts to pay up to $25 million. The same jury last week awarded the man, Kerry Lewis, $1.4 million in compensatory damages....In the Oregon case, about 1,000 files, from the years 1965 to 1984, were included as evidence, though the judge, John A. Wittmayer, allowed only the jury and lawyers involved to view them.
Lawyers for Mr. Lewis, who is now 37, said in court that the files detailed many instances across the country in which troop leaders or volunteers were allowed to continue working with children even after the Scouts had received complaints that they had committed sexual abuse. “They hid the problem,” Paul Mones, a lawyer for Mr. Lewis, said in closing arguments on Thursday, “and by hiding the problem, more abuse happened.” In the Oregon case, a former assistant troop leader, Timur Dykes, had admitted to molesting Mr. Lewis. Evidence has shown that Mr. Dykes, who has since been convicted in child-molesting cases, was allowed to interact with scouts even after leaders learned he had abused children.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/24/us/24scouts.html
The Man Who Sued the Pope Houston's Daniel Shea thinks Joseph Ratzinger has a lot to answer for if he'd talk. By John Nova Lomax Apr 22 2010
Five years ago, Houston attorney/theologian Daniel Shea watched the results of the papal conclave at home. Intellectually, he knew what the dirty-gray smoke puffing out of the Sistine Chapel's chimney signaled: that Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger would soon be announced as the new Supreme Pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church. Now, as the white-haired Pope battles a seemingly endless series of priestly sex scandals, Shea says he is still trying to get his head around his belief that he and his co-counsel Tahira Khan Merritt set the coronation in motion when they filed a Houston-based sex abuse lawsuit against Ratzinger. According to Shea, the cardinals elected Ratzinger Pope to give him the immunity that would enable him to avoid answering any questions concerning his knowledge about and handling of sex abuse cases in Houston's St. Francis De Sales church in the mid-1990s....
In Doe et al v. Roman Catholic Diocese of Galveston-Houston et al, Shea and Khan Merritt allege that a letter then-Cardinal Ratzinger sent to every Catholic bishop on May 18, 2001, constituted an international conspiracy to obstruct justice. This official Vatican document Ratzinger penned in his role as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith dealt with official church procedure in dealing with clerical sex abuse cases. Not only did this letter contain the cardinal's current thinking on the subject, it also cited in a footnote a top-secret 1962 Vatican document Shea would eventually flush out.
This 48-year-old document, informally known as Crimen Sollicitationis, considered a smoking gun in some quarters, contains written orders from the Vatican laying bare a system for protecting child molesters. To Shea, Crimen is more than a smoking gun, it is "a nuclear bomb."
Many churchmen disagree as to the true meaning of Crimen. Still, it's easy to interpret that, taken together, Crimen and Ratzinger's letter of May 18 make it plain that Ratzinger wanted these cases handled by the Vatican and only the Vatican. According to Ratzinger's letter, the roles "of judge, promoter of justice, notary and legal representative can validly be performed for these cases only by priests." Furthermore, the letter was co-signed by Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, who later went on the record as follows: "In my opinion, the demand that a bishop be obligated to contact the police in order to denounce a priest who has admitted the offense of pedophilia is unfounded."
The letter ordered everyone involved in these cases to keep the evidence confidential for ten years after the victims reached adulthood.
The entire proceedings were to be held under "pontifical secret," meaning those who broke the silence to outside authorities could be excommunicated.
In fact, Shea believes that what he started with the lawsuit may eventually result in the destruction of the entire Roman Catholic Church....
In response to Ratzinger's sending that letter, Shea and the Texas Secretary of State had already served his Vatican office with papers. The cardinal was scheduled to appear in federal Judge Lee Rosenthal's Houston courtroom.
What's more, the Pope would be giving his deposition to Shea, who is not just a tough plaintiff's lawyer, but also a former Catholic deacon with three postgraduate theological degrees — one of them pontifical — from the University of Louvain, one of the oldest Catholic universities in Europe.
"I don't think they were too pleased by that prospect," Shea says.
But now that he had been made Pope, it would be a cold day in hell before Joseph Ratzinger would darken the Rusk Street doorway of Rosenthal's court. As a newly minted head of state, Pope Benedict XVI was now diplomatically immune to American lawsuits. Again, Shea believes that was the whole point behind Ratzinger's election.
http://www.houstonpress.com/2010-04-22/news/the-man-who-sued-the-pope/
By WILLIAM YARDLEY April 23, 2010 PORTLAND, Ore. — The Boy Scouts of America were ordered Friday to pay $18.5 million in a lawsuit that has focused new attention on the secret files the Scouts keep to document claims of sexual abuse by troop leaders and volunteers....In Multnomah County Circuit Court on Friday, a jury found the Scouts liable for $18.5 million in punitive damages in a case brought by a man who was sexually abused by an assistant troop leader in the early 1980s, when the man was about 12. The verdict was by far the largest ever against the Scouts in a jury trial. The jury could have ordered the Scouts to pay up to $25 million. The same jury last week awarded the man, Kerry Lewis, $1.4 million in compensatory damages....In the Oregon case, about 1,000 files, from the years 1965 to 1984, were included as evidence, though the judge, John A. Wittmayer, allowed only the jury and lawyers involved to view them.
Lawyers for Mr. Lewis, who is now 37, said in court that the files detailed many instances across the country in which troop leaders or volunteers were allowed to continue working with children even after the Scouts had received complaints that they had committed sexual abuse. “They hid the problem,” Paul Mones, a lawyer for Mr. Lewis, said in closing arguments on Thursday, “and by hiding the problem, more abuse happened.” In the Oregon case, a former assistant troop leader, Timur Dykes, had admitted to molesting Mr. Lewis. Evidence has shown that Mr. Dykes, who has since been convicted in child-molesting cases, was allowed to interact with scouts even after leaders learned he had abused children.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/24/us/24scouts.html
The Man Who Sued the Pope Houston's Daniel Shea thinks Joseph Ratzinger has a lot to answer for if he'd talk. By John Nova Lomax Apr 22 2010
Five years ago, Houston attorney/theologian Daniel Shea watched the results of the papal conclave at home. Intellectually, he knew what the dirty-gray smoke puffing out of the Sistine Chapel's chimney signaled: that Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger would soon be announced as the new Supreme Pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church. Now, as the white-haired Pope battles a seemingly endless series of priestly sex scandals, Shea says he is still trying to get his head around his belief that he and his co-counsel Tahira Khan Merritt set the coronation in motion when they filed a Houston-based sex abuse lawsuit against Ratzinger. According to Shea, the cardinals elected Ratzinger Pope to give him the immunity that would enable him to avoid answering any questions concerning his knowledge about and handling of sex abuse cases in Houston's St. Francis De Sales church in the mid-1990s....
In Doe et al v. Roman Catholic Diocese of Galveston-Houston et al, Shea and Khan Merritt allege that a letter then-Cardinal Ratzinger sent to every Catholic bishop on May 18, 2001, constituted an international conspiracy to obstruct justice. This official Vatican document Ratzinger penned in his role as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith dealt with official church procedure in dealing with clerical sex abuse cases. Not only did this letter contain the cardinal's current thinking on the subject, it also cited in a footnote a top-secret 1962 Vatican document Shea would eventually flush out.
This 48-year-old document, informally known as Crimen Sollicitationis, considered a smoking gun in some quarters, contains written orders from the Vatican laying bare a system for protecting child molesters. To Shea, Crimen is more than a smoking gun, it is "a nuclear bomb."
Many churchmen disagree as to the true meaning of Crimen. Still, it's easy to interpret that, taken together, Crimen and Ratzinger's letter of May 18 make it plain that Ratzinger wanted these cases handled by the Vatican and only the Vatican. According to Ratzinger's letter, the roles "of judge, promoter of justice, notary and legal representative can validly be performed for these cases only by priests." Furthermore, the letter was co-signed by Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, who later went on the record as follows: "In my opinion, the demand that a bishop be obligated to contact the police in order to denounce a priest who has admitted the offense of pedophilia is unfounded."
The letter ordered everyone involved in these cases to keep the evidence confidential for ten years after the victims reached adulthood.
The entire proceedings were to be held under "pontifical secret," meaning those who broke the silence to outside authorities could be excommunicated.
In fact, Shea believes that what he started with the lawsuit may eventually result in the destruction of the entire Roman Catholic Church....
In response to Ratzinger's sending that letter, Shea and the Texas Secretary of State had already served his Vatican office with papers. The cardinal was scheduled to appear in federal Judge Lee Rosenthal's Houston courtroom.
What's more, the Pope would be giving his deposition to Shea, who is not just a tough plaintiff's lawyer, but also a former Catholic deacon with three postgraduate theological degrees — one of them pontifical — from the University of Louvain, one of the oldest Catholic universities in Europe.
"I don't think they were too pleased by that prospect," Shea says.
But now that he had been made Pope, it would be a cold day in hell before Joseph Ratzinger would darken the Rusk Street doorway of Rosenthal's court. As a newly minted head of state, Pope Benedict XVI was now diplomatically immune to American lawsuits. Again, Shea believes that was the whole point behind Ratzinger's election.
http://www.houstonpress.com/2010-04-22/news/the-man-who-sued-the-pope/
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